


I Was Born For This

by Asukachan07



Series: WestAllen AUs [9]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Barry Allen Loves Iris West, Caitlin Snow Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Cisco will give her one, DeVoe and Crisis story arcs included, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Iris West Loves Barry Allen, Killer Frost is her own warning, Love/Hate, Major character death - Freeform, Savitar is his own warning, West-Allen - Freeform, aka some lame action scenes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-12 22:23:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 37,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21483799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asukachan07/pseuds/Asukachan07
Summary: Canon-divergent, post 3x22 "Infantino Street"Barry says his last words to Iris.Killer Frost doesn't get to kill Cisco...this time.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West, Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow, Savitar/Iris West
Series: WestAllen AUs [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1471967
Comments: 131
Kudos: 100





	1. Life's A Game But It's Not Fair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [only1tonid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/only1tonid/gifts).

> Dedicated to WestallenIsMyHeart and only1tonid, for leaving comments on my other fics that made me push out of my comfort zone with the Iris/Savitar pairing.
> 
> Fic title from "Whatever It Takes" by Imagine Dragons.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Run This Town" (only Rihanna's parts because I have no idea what Jay-Z and Kanye West say)

"Barry," Iris whispered, her voice strained and her breathing stuttering as she raised a shaky hand to his face. 

He removed his mask right away, allowing her to run weak fingers to the right side of his face.

"I love you," she said, her eyes already glazing over. 

"I love you, Iris," Barry said back, his head heating up as he struggled to hold his tears so he could look at her before she took her last breath.

Even if he ran her to an emergency room, there was no chance that she would make it. The wound was wide and deep, had most definitely ruptured several organs.

Why Savitar hadn't just cut through her heart and spared her the pain, he couldn't understand.

Savitar was his time remnant! He _was_ Barry Allen! How could he—

The Flash couldn't finish his thought, because in a crack of blue lightning trailing after a gust of wind, the love of his life had been taken from his arms.

Barry lifted his head in disbelief, staring at Savitar in his armor, the Speed Force bazooka in one hand, Iris' unmoving body tucked to his opposite side.

"As promised, I'm taking everything you hold dear from you," the faster speedster declared in his modified voice. "And I'll let you live with the pain of your failure to save Iris, and the regret of bringing this on yourself. If you hadn't tried to change the timeline for your own selfish needs, you could have had it all, Barry Allen. You were greedy, and this is the penance for your sins."

Savitar's words cut so deeply because they were true, and he knew intimately how for months Barry himself kept thinking that everything would have been fine if he hadn't created Flashpoint.

"Please," Barry begged as he extended his arm towards Iris. "I just…"

He wanted to see Iris before she died, if she hadn't already. She looked so still, so  _ tiny _ next to Savitar's bulky armor.

"You can beg all you want, Barry," the wrathful speedster replied as he took a step back. "But it's too late for you. You'll never see Iris again."

And just like that, the speedster from the future disappeared, leaving Barry to scream his anguish into the night.

* * *

"Bye-bye, Vibe," Frost singsonged as she raised her hands, ready to kill the man who was keeping Caitlin fighting.

"Frost, let's go," Savitar's ominous voice ordered behind her.

The ice meta was never not intimidated by this Barry when he was in the armor. Even out of it he was significantly darker and more dangerous than the Barry Allen she had learned to know through Caitlin's eyes, but he was downright _frightening_ with the metal suit.

"After I kill him," she replied as she gathered her powers into her hands.

"_Now_," Savitar insisted, and before Killer Frost could object, she was standing in one of the rooms she hadn't explored yet in the abandoned warehouse, holding a bulky gun she had never seen before.

"What?" She exclaimed as she turned around just in time to see Savitar out of his armor.

They were in an improvised infirmary, and the time remnant was sitting by a bed, Iris West lying still on it. The speedster was running a knuckle down the injured woman (or was she already dead?) with such care that Frost felt her heart melt with tenderness.

Or rather, she felt Caitlin emote at the scene. With only Savitar's left side visible, this was just like watching Barry touch Iris, and he always did it with such reverence.

** _Barry couldn't spare a thought for you because he only cared about Iris_ ** , Frost reminded her alter ego as she took back control of her emotions, anger drowning the pathetic feelings of sympathy and sadness.

** _He forced you to use your powers to save her life,_ ** she recounted happily, feeling Caitlin's mind weaken as her resentment towards Barry warred against her sense of responsibility for Iris, who was her friend and had trusted her to be strong.

** _Barry never cared about you_ ** , the ice meta-human told the doctor, a final blow to throw her back into the corner of their shared consciousness.  ** _But Savitar cares about me. He killed the love of his life to show me that sacrifices are required to achieve godhood._ **

Then why had he stopped her from killing Cisco?

"What's going on?" She asked the speedster accordingly.

His head snapped towards her, turning so that she now could see the damaged right side of his face.

"Freeze her up," he commanded her as he stood up and took out the philosopher stone from his jacket before walking to her and taking the huge gun from her arms.

"It will take me a while to recalibrate this, so until then you have to suspend her in absolute zero."

"What? Why?" Frost questioned. "That would freeze her in space  _ and _ time, wouldn't it?"

She gave a good look at Iris, squinting at her chest.

It moved. Barely, weakly, but it _moved_.

"She's alive," the ice warrior said out loud as realization dawned on her. "You want me to _keep her alive_! You said that you were going to kill her! That it was either you or her!"

"It was my only option then," Savitar amended as he lifted up the strange gun.

Frost realized that it was the weapon that Tracey Brand had built to stop him, to trap him in the Speed Force.

"I don't understand," she admitted hesitatingly. "You said that you wanted us to become gods…"

"And we will be," the speedster assured her with a nod. "After all, we're about to defy the laws of physics, of the universe."

Doubt must have shown on Frost's face, because Savitar carefully placed the gun and the stone on a bench before stepping up to her, grabbing her shoulders almost painfully.

"I just told you to suspend Iris at absolute zero," he reminded her. "Have you ever done that before?"

"No," she replied with a start. "And I don't know if I can…"

"Yes, you can, because you've got the will to do the impossible," he assured her. "A few minutes ago you were ready to kill Cisco, something Caitlin would've rather died than done. This will be a walk in the park."

"I'm not Caitlin!" She exclaimed, taken aback that she had to parrot his own words.

"Then  _ prove _ it," he demanded as he tightened his grip on her shoulders, making her wince in pain. "Prove that these powers aren't a mere turn of fate, that without Barry's meddling with the timeline you were still meant to be and meant to become one of the most powerful beings to ever walk this earth. Do the impossible. Suspend Iris at. _Absolute. Zero._"

He didn't say 'or else' but his eyes conveyed the message just as effectively.

Killer Frost immediately quelled the fear that raised in her at the thought of failing to carry out his command.

If he'd hurt Iris in cold blood, he would have no qualms about killing her, _if_ she failed.

She _wasn't_ going to fail.

"She can die, it doesn't matter," Savitar added with a tilt of his head as he searched the ice meta's face. "Just suspend her at absolute zero. That's your final test to show me your determination to follow me into godhood."

Then he turned around and grabbed the gun and stone before walking out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! I reply to comments after posting a new chapter.
> 
> Please read the tags a second time. Additional warnings will apply in later chapters.


	2. You Think I'm Crazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris isn't dead. But she died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Either nothing will make sense in this chapter, or you'll understand where I'm going right away.  
Please read the tags again, no additional warning needed for this one.
> 
> Title from song "Monster" by Eminem ft. Rihanna (I'm seeing a pattern here)

_ “Iris West,” a familiar voice called in the electric void Iris had suddenly found herself. _

_ Was this heaven? _

_ She turned around and saw her mother standing a few feet away, looking healthy. _

_ “Francine?” the young woman called back as she walked up to her, and quickly realized that, no, this was not heaven. _

_ That was not her mother. Francine West had never looked at her daughter with such serenity, and definitely not such emotional detachment. _

_ “I’m in the Speed Force,” the journalist reflected out loud, sparing a glance at the pale blue space around her. _

_ “You’re the lightning rod,” the entity that was impersonating her mother said. _

_ “Excuse me?” Iris replied, confused. _

_ “You are more now, but in time balance will be restored,” the fake Francine kept going as if she hadn’t said anything. “You must keep him grounded. If you lose yourself, so will he.” _

_ That didn’t make any sense. A lightning rod? Like the lightning wand Cisco had made before? _

_ This had to be some weird dream, right? Could people dream after they died though? _

** _I don’t feel dead_ ** , _ Iris said out loud, and then she woke up. _

She was alive, lying down in an infirmary bed.

It wasn’t at S.T.A.R. Labs, which she immediately found normal. Without Caitlin, there was no one to care for her at the secret lab.  
But this was _ not _a regular hospital either, Iris suspected as she sat up. She was dressed in an oversized white shirt instead of a normal paper gown. The smell of disinfectant was much fainter than in the hospital rooms she'd been previously. 

The journalist frowned as she brought a gentle hand to her abdomen. There was no pain.

In fact, she didn’t feel drowsy or thirsty like she had the few other times she had been hospitalized. She was connected to a monitor that showed that her vitals were perfectly normal. But that was all she was connected to. There was no I.V., no bandages, _nothing_.

It’s as if she had just been asleep and was waking up from a good night sleep, something she hadn't had in months.

“You’re awake? Great, I was sick of being on watch duty.”

Iris gasped before even turning her head towards the literal chilly voice…

“Caitlin?” she whispered as she took in the woman who didn’t quite look like her friend.

A tiny part of Iris wanted to ask where the meta-human had found that outfit. It was a bit tacky, though she looked badass in it.

“I’m not Caitlin,” the white-haired woman corrected. “I’m Killer Frost.”

Okay, now was not the time to have a debate with someone suffering from some multiple personality syndrome or whatever that was. There were more pressing matters.

“Where are we?” the reporter tried to start with an easy question.

Frost frowned at her without answering.

“Is Savitar here?” Iris asked instead, speaking at a lower volume as she slipped out of the narrow bed.

No vertigo, she felt in top shape. She could possibly outrun the ice meta, but definitely not the speedster.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Killer Frost asked back as she stepped backwards and pressed a button by the door of the room.

_ Damn it. _

Iris looked behind her to see if there was another exit, but huffed in disappointment when a gust of air whipped her hair to the side.

“Iris,” Barry’s voice resonated behind her, and the journalist’s brain had to remind her body that _ no _ , it wasn’t supposed to relax, because this was _ not _ Barry.

She looked ahead and glared at the time remnant, who oddly seemed to be in a good mood rather than brooding like the last time she had seen his face.

Shouldn’t he be upset that she wasn’t dead?

_ Shouldn’t _ you _ ask how come you’re not dead? _ Her investigative voice chimed in.

“What happened?” she therefore questioned Savitar, who was already stepping closer to her.

“How do you feel?” he asked her, ignoring her question.

Iris didn’t want to show him her fear by stepping away from him, so she simply stared at his face as he gently cupped hers with both hands.

She hadn’t been able to observe him very well on Earth-2, but now Iris felt a pang of sadness at his scars and discolored eye.

What happened to him? How come his healing abilities hadn’t fixed his injuries?

“I asked you a question,” the speedster reminded her quietly, softly, more encouraging than demanding.

“Can’t you see for yourself? I’m fine,” Iris replied harshly, fighting the urge to remove his hands from her skin.

Savitar gave her a patient smile, a spark in his good eye telling her that he knew something significantly important that she didn’t.

_ At least he’s not trying to kill me, _ she thought bitterly.

The speedster turned around, and Iris noticed that Killer Frost was gone.

“Caitlin,” she whispered, panic seizing her.

The doctor had been gone for months. Was Caitlin’s consciousness even still intact? Could a cure still work on her, if a cure could be made to remove her cruel alter-ego?

“It’s alright, don’t worry about her,” Savitar had the gall to tell her as he leaned forward to hold his face at her eye level.

“Who should I worry about then, myself?” she questioned him. “Are you going to kill me now? Should I be screaming, _ begging _ you to spare my life?”

“No, no,” Savitar actually answered, frowning at her as if she was being silly. “I already killed you, it’s over Iris. I’m so sorry that I had to hurt you again. I thought that this timeline was the same. But it isn’t. _ It’s over _. I saved you, finally.”

The young woman gaped at the time remnant.

Was he listening to himself? What was he even saying? He had already killed her? But, she was alive and well…

The words Savitar had spoken through Julian that first time, when he'd demanded to be treated like a deity, came back to the reporter.

_ You should, Iris. I hold the power of life and death over all of you. _

“No,” she gasped, rushing backwards, hitting her back against a desk while she stared at Savitar, who blinked at her calmly, his hands still up where they had held her head.

Slowly, he lowered his arms and straightened up to his full height, then walked to his left towards a closet.

“You might not feel it yet, but you’re not the same Iris West who died two weeks ago,” he told her conversationally as he opened the closet door and unhooked a couple of hangers from inside it.

_ Two weeks ago? _

“The Iris who felt incomplete growing up without a mother,” the speedster continued as he carefully laid out the clothes he’d retrieved on the bed, “the Iris whose dream to become a cop was shut down by her father,” he added as he smoothed out a wrinkle that Iris couldn’t see from her corner.

He went back to the closet and brought out a pair of ankle boots. In normal circumstances, Iris would be all over them: they looked comfortable with the thick heels, which were high enough to give her a significant boost in height.

“The Iris who was scared of acting on her feelings for her best friend, because she didn’t want her comfortable relationship with him to change,” he kept going, so casually, as if he wasn’t a version of that best friend.

He bent over to place the shoes at the end of the bed, and finally looked at her, his mismatched eyes piercing her.

“The Iris who was scared of dying without leaving a legacy behind,” he said as he stepped towards her this time.

“Stay away from me,” she demanded firmly, but he kept getting closer.

“The Iris West who was defined by others: Joe West’s daughter, Barry Allen’s best friend, Wally’s sister, Central City News' reporter…That’s not you anymore,” Savitar concluded as he stopped a couple feet away from her. “That Iris died, and _ you _ were born anew.”

He was insane. She’d known that even before the team had learned that he was a future version of Barry, but seeing the temporal clone of the man she loved spouting nonsense…She couldn’t stand it.

“Shut up,” she hissed belatedly.

“I granted you this gift of a new life,” the time remnant claimed softly as he extended his hand towards her. “It is yours to do whatever you wish, but if you stay with me, Iris…You’ll have _ everything _ you ever wanted.”

“Said every villain in history,” she talked back. “I’m not going to be your minion, Savitar.”

“Oh, but I’m not Savitar anymore,” he argued. “See, I too died and was reborn. Now that you’ve been released from the clutches of death, I can be Barry again.”

“Good for you, _ Barry,_” she spat his name angrily. “But all I want is to go home to my fiancé, my family and friends. So step aside and let me through.”

“The fiancé, family and friends who_ let you _ _ _die__?” He asked, tilting his head and peering at her curiously. “They won’t want anything to do with you. After all, you’re not the real Iris West. The Iris West they knew is dead.”

What?

“But suit yourself,” the speedster declared as he waved a hand towards the door. “Here are clothes and shoes, and the bathroom is next door.”

He stepped away from her, making to walk out of the infirmary.

“What do you mean?” Iris asked as she grabbed his arm to stop him. “What do you mean by they won’t want anything to do with me?”

Savitar looked at her with sympathy, which didn’t look faked.

“You can go and see for yourself,” he suggested, “or you can stay with me and discover what makes you different, _ better_, than the Iris who died.”

“You’re the one who _killed_ me,” she corrected him, her voice shaky as she started to weep.

For what? She couldn’t tell. Maybe for herself. She had died after all. She should mourn, right?

“One day you will thank me for it,” he assured her before thumbing away her tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos, comments, speculations and questions are very welcome!  
I'm trying to wait until I've posted the following chapter before replying to comments, I hope that's okay.


	3. Living in Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Killer Frost reconsiders her strategy to reach godhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Killer Frost and Savitar are their own warnings.
> 
> Chapter title from song "Fighter" by Christina Aguilera.

_ "How do you feel?" _

Savitar had used such a gentle tone with the newly resurrected Iris West that Killer Frost had left the infirmary in disgust.

He shouldn't stop so low to coddle the woman who had stood between him and his ascendency into godhood. Sure, in the end she had proven useful, but the Flash and his team had almost thwarted his plans at multiple occasions because they had been intent on saving her.

Frost didn't like that he wanted to be called Barry again. It made no sense to her.

One thing was certain: whatever the name he went by now, the speedster truly was a god now, because he had brought Iris West back to life.

Though she still had a way to go, Killer Frost was a deity in her own right, too.

** _Neither of you are deities_ ** , Caitlin objected. ** _You are a meta-humans, nothing more. You weren't able to suspend Iris at absolute zero…_ **

"Because it was my _ first time _ trying," Frost reminded her. "I got close enough that Savitar was satisfied. Next time I will—"

** _Absolute zero is impossible to reach, _ ** the doctor asserted ** _. It's a theoretical value. Barry knows that. He's manipulating you into thinking that you can do the impossible just so you'll obey him. You said that he used _ ** **me** ** _ to save Iris' life? Well he used _ ** **you too** ** _ just for the same purpose!_ **

"No, he used Iris' death to show me what it takes to truly become a god!" The ice meta insisted. "Then he brought her back to life to prove that he's attained godhood! He holds the power of life _and_ death over lesser beings."

** _Barry didn't resurrect Iris, _ ** the doctor denied. ** _I'm sure that he simply used the Philosopher's stone to heal her somehow…_ **

"You don't know what you're talking about," Killer Frost started firmly, not letting her alter ego plant seeds of doubt in their shared head.

"What he and I can do are beyond your understanding as a medical doctor. This is not something you can explain with science."

** _You know what actually can't be explain with science? Love. Barry Allen loves Iris West, more than anything or anyone. Whatever he does, he does it for _ ** **her** ** _, even now that he's mentally unstable._ **

"Savitar isn't crazy," Frost objected.

** _He's spent centuries in isolation in the Speed Force. Anyone would be broken from such an experience._ **

"Well, _ I _ lived locked up in your head all my life and I'm just fine," the ice meta reminded her alter ego.

"Are you talking to yourself?" Iris asked carefully as she walked into the room.

Caitlin chuckled and said ** _not sure Iris agrees that you're just fine _ **before going quiet. Frost resisted the urge to growl in annoyance at her abruptly cutting off communications.

"I was talking to Caitlin," she answered Iris' question mindlessly, only realizing her mistake after the other woman stared at her with wide eyes.

"You can talk to her? Can she hear me then?" The journalist interrogated her excitingly as she charged at her, only to freeze a few feet away and adopt a sad puppy face.

"Is she okay?" Iris asked quietly, tears gathering in her eyes. "Caitlin I'm so sorry…"

Though Caitlin had crawled back to the subconscious side of their brain, Killer Frost could still detect the burst of sorrow the doctor felt in response to Iris' words, quickly followed by bitter resentment at Barry for putting her into this situation. 

It was Caitlin's deep grudge against Barry's indifference to her identity crisis that had allowed Killer Frost to take over the body she had dreamed to take control of for decades.

But Frost wasn't a broken version of Caitlin any more than Savitar was a broken version of Barry Allen. She was a _ better _ version of her alter ego.

She knew it, Savitar knew it. But the two of them were gods, of course _they_ knew.

That knowledge meant nothing until it was relayed to the mortals. The ones who cared so much about Caitlin Snow: Cisco Ramon, Julian Albert...

Iris West, too.

"There's nothing to be worried about, Iris," the ice meta assured the reporter as she left her spot by the couch and walked towards the regular human, who looked ready to bolt.

Frost materialized a sharp icicle in her hand and pointed it in the direction of the vulnerable woman.

"Soon, Caitlin will be totally gone, and I'll finally be able to fulfill my destiny: I'll be a goddess, one of the most powerful beings to ever walk this earth."

The fearful gaze the journalist had on her makeshift weapon turned skeptical.

"Is this why you allied yourself to Savitar?" Iris questioned her. "Because he promised to make you powerful? A goddess? You two are crazy!"

Without thinking, Killer Frost gripped the collar of the nice blouse Iris had changed into and shoved her against the closest wall, bringing the icicle against the dark skin of her neck.

"You mortals call 'crazy' whatever you can't comprehend," she explained carefully. "But let me tell you one thing that us gods have that human don't: the right to take lives however we please."

It was the most logical course of action to the ice meta. She had tried to kill Cisco Ramon too soon, thinking that Caitlin wouldn't fight back.

But Caitlin had reemerged just after Savitar had tasked her to freeze Iris. Cisco's near death had made the doctor's conscious mind resurface stronger than before, so going back in the vicinity of Vibe sounded counterproductive.

To be free of Caitlin forever, it felt more practical that Killer Frost work her way up to the list of people who still wished for the doctor's return. She had to break Caitlin's will to reemerge by slowly but surely exposing her to feelings of grief and guilt.

Frost could start with Iris West, who had recently become close to Caitlin. The reporter wasn't quite a good friend to the doctor, but both women cared for each other, it was clear to see. Then she'd kill Julian. And then by the time Frost got to Cisco, Caitlin would be too weighed down by her sorrow to attempt to take control of her body.

Yes, killing Iris West was the first step to gaining full agency of her mind and body, the ice meta was sure of it.

** _No!!!_ ** Caitlin's voice screamed in her head, distracting Frost just as Iris West hit her with a knee to her stomach, making her double over in pain as her icicle fell to the floor.

"You bitch!" The ice meta growled as Iris shuffled away from her, but before she could reach the door Killer Frost threw a blast of ice at her.

The reporter vanished from the spot she had been standing, a woosh of air telling Frost how Iris West had escaped a second death. 

Killer Frost's frustration at Savitar's intervention was further provoked by the fact that he ignored her for a whole minute, focusing instead on Iris who struggled against his hold on her shoulders, demanding that he let her go.

"Why did you save her?" Frost asked him. "She's served your purpose. Let her serve mine!"

That got the speedster's attention, though he kept a firm hand on Iris' arm as he turned towards Frost.

"And what is your plan for her?" He inquired calmly. "To me it looked like you wanted to _ murder _ her."

"Yes, so that I can emotionally break Caitlin, and fully gain control of my body," the ice meta confirmed. "I need to get rid of the people that Caitlin cares about, starting with _her_," she emphasized as she pointed a finger at the journalist. "A necessary sacrifice for my ascendancy. You of all people should understand."

Savitar's mismatched eyes narrowed, then appraised her carefully.

** _He won't let you lay a finger on Iris_ **, Caitlin claimed vehemently.

** _Yes he will, because he wants me to be a god just like him,_ ** Frost replied to her telepathically.

She smiled triumphantly when Savitar let go of Iris and stepped away from her, leaving enough room for the ice meta to strike the journalist.

"Caitlin, please, I know you're still in there!" Iris pleaded as she started shaking like a leaf. "Fight her! You're strong enough!"

"She might be, but not for long," Killer Frost assured her as she gathered her powers in the palms of her hands.

** _Barry! Barry, help her!_ ** The doctor begged uselessly in her head.

** _He won't help her, and you can't do anything about it, _ **Frost announced as she raised her arms to aim at Iris.

Only to have Savitar suddenly stand before her in his armor and toss her across the room.

Sharp pain lanced Killer Frost's body as she crashed into the couch on her back, but she swiftly rolled over and lifted off the floor on her forearms and knees to take laborious gulps of air.

“What are you doing?” she asked the speedster as she struggled back up to her feet.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he dared ask back, his ominous voice carrying an edge of threat.

“It looks like you’re _betraying_ me!” she screamed in outrage before sending blasts of ice his way.

He dodged them, but she also shielded herself from the lightning he threw at her, though it shattered the ice shield she had raised in front of her.

“I _ helped _ you become a god!” she reminded him angrily as she emitted cold vapors to drop the temperature in the entire room. “You _owe me_ your victory against Flash and his team! You _promised_ to help me attain godhood too!”

She saw her opening when Iris whined in distress, her breath visible in the air as she folded on herself, wrapping her arms around her middle to preserve warmth.

Predictably, Savitar—no, he truly was _Barry_ now—turned around to check on her, and that’s when Killer Frost struck him.

She knew that the armor would protect him from getting frozen himself, but all she needed was to immobilize him for a moment.

“No!” Iris shouted as she saw Frost turn the god into an ice statue.

The ice meta wanted nothing more than to freeze the reporter too, but she sprinted out of the room instead, not wasting a precious second to escape Savitar's wrath.

Her body heated up to unprecedented temperatures as she ran up a flight of stairs to reach the ground level of the building, and simply froze and shattered the first wall in front of her to get outside.

Only when she had glided on her ice more than a mile away from the warehouse did she dare look back, and was half relieved half disappointed that the speedster wasn’t coming after her.

** _I told you that he wouldn't let you hurt her,_ ** Caitlin whispered in her head, and the ice meta noted that her alter ego didn’t sound happy to be right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it hasn't been clear so far, I'm exploring the whole 'becoming a god' part of season 3, which I found promising but like everything else it was handled poorly by the show writers. Savitar had the freaking Philosopher's stone in his possession, why did he need Cisco? Sure, Barry Allen isn't a mechanical engineer, but Savitar is how many centuries old? If he could fix his own armor, he could've tinkered with the Speed Force Bazooka himself. And I like Killer Frost because she's powerful and basically the only person other than Iris who could stop Savitar/Barry. That is, if she stays in control. Caitlin isn't giving up her body so easily.
> 
> Back to Savitar and Iris next chapter. I know that I'm leaving a lot of questions unanswered, but the next few updates will clarify many points of the plot.


	4. The Rights And Wrongs Invade Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris helps out Savitar and asks some questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place immediately after Frost freezes up Barry and escapes. The chapter provides a vague background on Savitar/Barry, but you can read my other fic "Believer" if you want a more straightforward idea of how Barry's time remnant became Savitar, I won't rewrite it all in this story (mostly because I confuse myself too)
> 
> Also, warning for mild non-consensual touching, but do I need to say anything when Savitar's his own warning lol.
> 
> Chapter title from song "Weight of Us" by Sanders Bohlke.

To her greatest shame, Iris' first reaction was to run away.

After all, what better opportunity could she ever have to outrun a speedster than when said speedster was frozen in ice?

But Iris prided herself from knowing right from wrong, and leaving someone to die from hypothermia was wrong, however deranged the person appeared to be. Savitar had also defended her from Killer Frost, therefore abandoning him would make her feel guilty for the rest of her supposedly new life.

So the journalist used the base of a lamp and the broken leg of a chair to put a hole in the thick layer of ice surrounding the armored speedster, while at the same time giving him a pep talk, the way she would for Barry, so he would find the strength to either vibrate the rest of the ice off or phase through it.

In the end Savitar phased out of his ice trap, falling on his hands and knees because Iris hesitated catching him. That’s because a very, very quiet voice in a remote corner of her mind reminded her that this was the man who had killed her and taken her away from her family.

"Are you okay?"

He was the one who asked the question, leaving her speechless as she stared down at her fiancé’s time remnant from the future (was every year trying to be crazier than the previous one since the particle accelerator explosion?)

"Did Frost hurt you?" He asked again, his breath still labored as he looked up, his gaze keen as he took her in. 

"Are you kidding me? You're the one who got attacked!" The reporter pointed out as she gave into the urge to help him up.

He was so cold! 

"I'll be fine," he assured her as he tried not to dump his weight on her, and she remained quiet as she slowly walked him out of the still chilly living room.

They were were in the hallway leading back to the infirmary when the speedster unexpectedly stopped and fully wrapped Iris in his arms, molding her body to his cold one.

"You're freezing…" was the only complaint that she could articulate, a series of shivers (of disgust, of fear, of cold) making her moan quietly.

"I know, just a second," he said quietly on top of her head, "I'll just—"

He didn't finish his sentence, instead vibrated his entire body, the movement transferring to Iris, and this time she sighed in relief as he generated enough heat to warm them both.

For an insane moment, Iris didn't fight his embrace as he readjusted his hand to hold the back of her neck and her waist, but then he nuzzled his nose into her hair and she jerked away from him.

"What are you doing?" She demanded as she wrapped her arms around herself, feeling violated by the unwanted intimacy.

This was the man who had _ killed _ her. He might have the (disfigured) face of her fiancé, but his mind and soul were dark pits full of rage and bitterness. Just because he was being nice to her now didn’t mean that he truly didn’t mean her any further harm.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" He asked back, and Iris reeled at the sense of déja vu.

That was exactly how he'd answered Killer Frost's question, not ten minutes ago.

"It looks like you feel entitled to _ intimacy _ with me just because I helped you, which I only did because you defended me against Killer Frost," she answered sincerely. "I don't want anything to do with you, Savitar."

He looked at her calmly, though his intense gaze made her fidget.

After what felt like unending seconds, he sighed quietly and rubbed his forehead.

"Call me Barry," he instructed flatly before turning around to walk ahead of her.

He didn't lead her to the infirmary. Instead after making her go through hallways that could use a little dusting and fresh paint, they arrived at a well-kept kitchen and dining room.

"Also, gods don't lie," he added apropos of nothing as he walked to the sink to wash his hands.

"What?" The journalist reacted distractingly, noting how the room looked very similar to one of the break rooms at S.T.A.R. Labs.

"You said that you don't want anything to do with me," he specified after drying his hands and turning around to face her, leaning against the kitchen counter. "That's a lie, and it's unbefitting of your station as a goddess to speak untruths."

Iris groaned in frustration and threw her hands in the air.

"Would you stop with the god speech? You're _ not _ a god!" She half-shouted. "And I'm definitely not some powerful goddess either because I clearly needed you to intervene so that Frost didn't turn me into an icicle!"

"I intervened because _ I wanted to_, not because you needed me to," he corrected her with a tilt of his head.

Iris gaped at him.

He was really a lost cause, wasn't he? But alright, two could play that game.

"Alright, so if I'm a goddess, what are my powers?" She questioned him.

"That is for you to discover," he replied without missing a beat, as if he truly believed that she had to go on some self-discovery journey to graduate from deity school.

"So there's nothing that I can do right now that makes me a goddess," she flatly pointed out. "You said that I was a better Iris than the one who died, but I don't see it. I don't feel any different."

A bit of a lie, because Iris felt better than two weeks ago. She felt well-rested, and didn't have that weight in her soul at the idea of having her days counted. She also felt in tip-top shape despite slacking off at the gym and indulging her brownies obsession more often than ever before in the past couple months. 

"Are you trying to convince me or to convince yourself by saying that?" Savitar asked her with a slight frown. "Because you're wasting your time trying to lie to me, Iris. I know you, for now better than you know yourself."

"Clearly you didn't know that I wouldn't appreciate being murdered and kidnapped," she mumbled as she took a seat on a stool by the kitchen counter. 

This place did look like the break room at S.T.A.R. Labs!

"Where are we?" The journalist questioned, not really expecting an answer.

If he didn't want to lie he had to stay quiet.

"One of the S.T.A.R. Labs warehouses," the speedster replied before taking glasses out of a cabinet and a pitch of cucumber water from the fridge.

Iris stared at him as he poured them both a glass of water.

"I told you, gods don't lie," he asserted with a hint of a smile as he returned her stare with his mismatched eyes.

"How did you get your injuries? Why don't they heal?" The reporter jumped on the opportunity to interrogate someone willing to tell only the truth.

This was a reporter’s wildest dream, really. She itched to have her recorder or even her pen and notepad handy.

"I fought with the original Savitar in the Speed Force," he said after blinking at her, maybe expecting other questions. "I suppose that I could heal myself with the Philosopher's Stone, but I like looking different from _ him_."

There was a slight bitterness at the way he said _ him_, as in _ Barry_.

"You hate Barry," Iris recalled. "All this time it's been about making him suffer. By killing me, so he could become you?"

"Possibly," the time remnant answered with a shrug. "It's hard to tell if he would've perpetuated the time loop started with the creation of Flashpoint. I actually became Savitar by trying to break it, thinking I could change the timeline, but I didn’t. So I thought that neither versions of us could escape the paradox this time around. I was wrong. I found a way out."

"How?" The reporter asked after taking a sip of water, more to keep him talking than from really wanting details.

Those time-traveling shenanigans were above her. She knew that he wasn't, but he could've been lying and she wouldn't be able to verify that.

"Mostly through the Philosopher’s Stone, but _ you _ were the key to this problem," he answered, emotion coloring his voice. 

Iris blinked at his intense gaze, flinching slightly when he extended a hand to grip hers.

His touch was gentle, not at all overbearing. If she closed her eyes she could believe that it was Barry holding her hand, which is why she kept her eyes wide open and stared at the scars of the side of his face.

"It's always been you, _ Iris_,” the speedster insisted. “You've been the solution to all my problems, even when I wasn't aware that there was a problem. You're my clarity, my salvation. I remember telling you that the thought of you is what picks me and keeps me going when I falter or make a mistake…The me then had no idea how absolute that truth it. It is valid across timelines and universes, like gravity. That's just one thing that makes you _ my _ goddess, Iris. My lightning rod. You are your own person, but to me you're _ everything_."

Iris didn't even try to hold back her tears through his speech.

It was jarring, mind-blowing, _ heart-breaking _ that this dark version of the man Iris loved more than anything felt exactly the same way Barry did for her, but all the same had spent months (from her perspective) to centuries (from his perspective) trying to ruin the life of his own original version.

"Then why would you do this to us?" She asked accordingly. "Why would you make Barry and I suffer if you believe what you just said? That's so _ cruel_."

She had forgotten his hand on hers until he slightly increased his grip while giving her a sad smile.

"Because, Iris," he said softly, "I couldn't stand to live without you. I was alone and broken, more so than the original Barry because I didn't have Joe or Cisco. To the world I didn't even exist. And the victory over Savitar wasn't even a victory. Locking him up in the Speed Force? That was a reward to him! He would never die there, would live forever like a true god, while _ I _ had nothing, while _ you_ were gone. It wasn't _ fair_. There was no justice to a world like that."

Oh, right. All this time Iris’ focus had been on her Barry, but of course _ this _ Barry had the right to feel like his own person too, however contradictory his nature as a time remnant made it.

"So I decided to remake the world, to create my own justice," he explained to her. "Which sounds easier said than done, because however powerful the Speed Force makes speedsters, it doesn't let us abuse those powers. There is an order to this universe, and creating Flashpoint in the first place had broken that order, hence the punishment. That's how I saw Savitar for the longest time: a punishment for my foolishness back then. I thought that losing my father was terrible, the worst thing that could happen? The universe showed me what _ worst _ truly was. Losing you made me hit rock bottom."

Iris was a bit overwhelmed as she absorbed all the imparted information, trying to piece the story together. The most important detail was that there were apparently two Savitars: the one who had originally killed her, and Barry's time remnant who had taken over his role in an attempt to break the time loop?

"For so long I resigned to the fate of losing you over and over again even though I kept trying to get you back," the latter recounted. "_ Me_, not the original Barry. He didn't even try, kept reminding me of that broken cup nonsense that Jay Garrick spouted that first time I tried to go back in time again, saying that speedsters aren't gods but simple men."

Iris remembered Barry telling her—more diplomatically—that he disagreed with the older speedster. That speedsters could be gods.

_ It wouldn't take much, _her fiancé had claimed.

Losing your sanity while spending an indeterminate amount of time in the Speed Force, becoming the bad guy, fighting people you used to care about, leading a friend astray after ruining the lives of countless others by pretending to be a deity…That sounded like _ too much _ for Iris. The price for this supposed godhood was too high.

All that for _ her_.

"I asked you not to lose yourself," she whispered as she shook her head. "I _begged_ you to find solutions that wouldn't compromise your moral values. Barry, all the things that you've done to save me…"

"Don't say that it wasn't worth it," the speedster requested sharply as he suddenly removed his hand, as if she'd burned him.

"That would be the greatest lie of all, Iris,” he argued, “and you have to _ stop lying_ if you want to stay with me, if you want to achieve your highest potential. I know that you're scared, but _fear_ is the biggest liar in this existence. It made your father forbid you to become a cop, it made me wait forever to tell you my feelings, it's kept you double guessing every decision you made for the past months…"

"Because of the fear of dying that _ you _ instilled in me!" The reporter felt compelled to remind him.

"And don't you feel silly now?" He asked her before letting out a humorless laugh. "You kept telling Barry that you believed that he would save you, but deep down you were still scared that he wouldn't. You were so consumed by your fear of dying that when you learned that I was Savitar, you didn't realize that you were actually right. _ Barry Allen _ did save you. _ I _ saved you, but fear made you shake like a leaf until the very end, until I stabbed you."

"Saving me from yourself isn't something to be proud of," Iris commented bitterly.

"I'm not proud of causing you pain," he told her with a shake of his head. "And it wasn't easy for me to do, this time loop was a _ curse_, making me relive and reenact my worst nightmare. Also, I wasn't immune to fear either, not until you died in my arms for the last time and I knew that I could actually become a god. Now I can ignore fear. I don't have to hear its lies anymore.”

He took a deep breath, his hardened features softening as he spoke again more quietly.

“I want the same for you, Iris,” he informed her. “Let go of the fear, let go of the lies, and fulfill your destiny."

Iris wanted to laugh, but she didn't want to sound as hysterical as she felt.

This god nonsense was driving her insane, not because she didn't believe a word about it, but because it was actually starting to make _ sense_.

Fear had governed her life for the past months, the young woman had been very aware of that. But until now, she hadn't been ready to admit that fear had influenced so many aspects of her life long before Savitar came into the picture.

The fear of losing her father's respect and love if she enrolled in the police academy despite his disapproval.

The fear of staying single when Barry was in the coma, because he wasn't there anymore to make her feel like she didn't need a lover to feel happy. Because she was scared that Barry would die and she would have no one left to cherish other than her father.

The fear of being a disloyal girlfriend if she even entertained the idea of _thinking_ of Barry through a romantic lense. That fear, she had dragged with her since the tenth grade, when Barry had accepted to date Becky Cooper and Iris had felt jealousy for the first time since envying the kids who had mothers when she was little.

The fear of not having what it took to become a journalist worthy of a Pulitzer nomination, though her go-getter approach to investigative journalism had efficiently masked that one.

"Experiencing fear doesn't make me a bad person," Iris argued firmly as she stared at the time remnant, who was looking at her expectantly. "It makes me—"

She didn't finish her sentence, gasping just as Savitar—_Barry_—smiled at her knowingly.

"It makes you _ human_, yes," he completed the sentence. "But you can be more, Iris. I can show you how to be a goddess, if you want that. Whenever you're ready to let go of your former life, of the weight of the lies that shaped you."

That same quiet voice from earlier that had reminded her that the man in front of her was a bad guy? It was now _screaming_ at her to not listen to the speedster.

Iris ignored it all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're still with me after that load of nonsense, though I got "fear is a liar" from The Blacklist. Not sure who Reddington was quoting when he said that.
> 
> Heads up, the next chapter is also focused on Iris and Savitar but there's a six months time jump *nudge nudge*


	5. All The Subliminal Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Journalist Iris is back! Huge disclaimer that I have no idea how newspapers are run, nor radio stations.
> 
> Also, warning for mild non-con and dub-con kissing mentioned. And Savitar is his own warning.
> 
> Chapter title from song "Sucker" by the Jonas Brothers

“And we might have time for one more quick caller…Larry, from Keystone! Hi Larry, you’re on The Morning’s Watch on 89.6 K-I-N, how’s it going?”

“It would go so much smoother if the police would do something about that damned new drug that’s been circulating in the streets lately!”

“What new drug, Larry?”

“I can’t even remember what it’s called? ‘Tears’ or something? Heard it glows blue, and isn’t that already a huge red flag! My neighbor’s son almost O.D.ed on it. He’s a good kid, just in that rebellious phase, you know? Teenagers shouldn’t be punished for doing illegal things because the authorities should make sure that illegal things are out of their reach! You know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean, Larry, and thank you for warning us about this new drug in Keystone. This is the end of The Morning’s Watch on 89.6. K-I-N, the radio station of the Keystone Investigative Newspaper. We watch over each other because we’re all a big family, we’re KIN. I’m your host Libby Lawrence, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow!”

Iris did a fist pump as the jingle resonated in the virtual newsroom.

Barry checked the wall clock: seven A.M. Iris used to not be functional this early without a cup of coffee, but nowadays she was up and running before he was done making breakfast.

"That was awesome, Libby!" She complimented with a wide smile, even though Miss Lawrence couldn't see her. "Well done squeezing in the last call."

"Thanks, Miss Eastwood." The new employee responded quite shyly.

"I told you, call me Dahlia!" Iris corrected her with a cute giggle. "Hey Buck, how did we do last week? You have the numbers now, right?"

"We reached a new record of listeners, yet again!" The other KIN employee announced excitedly. "If our growth rate plateaus, by the time the official radio rating report comes out we'll be among the top five radio stations in the city by volume of listeners!"

"Which means that we could be _ the _ top radio station in the city if our growth rate _goes up,_" Kamilla, the photographer of the online newspaper, estimated. "Come on guys, I know that you can do it."

"Hey, the newspaper is already growing at a faster rate than I predicted thanks to the radio!" Buck reminded her. "Particularly thanks to The Morning's Watch. That was a genius idea, Dahlia."

"Thanks, Buck," Iris replied, beaming with pride. "Alright guys, let's take a two hours break. When we log back on, I want Buck and Xan to go through the comments on our morning edition and make me a list of those that seem informative for follow ups. Kamilla, I just sent you a list of places and people I need you to get additional pictures from for tomorrow's evening edition. Libby, Seth and Emily, figure out between yourselves which one will do weather and traffic forecasts as well as police and FBI criminal watch announcements. Seth, great job on the compilation of police press conferences. Don't forget to highlight our contribution to the Daugherty arrest when you're up."

The newspaper founder and chief editor took a quick breath before clapping her hands once.

"That's it for now, KIN! I'm off to check on our current leads plus start on this new drug story. Keep up the amazing work!"

"Be careful boss!" her six employees chorused before they all logged off.

Iris removed and pocketed her bluetooth earpiece before putting her desktop and laptop on sleep mode. She grabbed her tablet on her way out of her office.

"I can ask around about that new drug," Barry offered as he pushed her plate in front of her after she washed her hands.

"Bear, I don't want to have to report the existence of a speedster in Keystone City," she objected with an apologetic smile before bringing up digital copies of other newspapers on her tablet. "That's not me anymore."

Indeed, Keystone City lacked the extraordinary atmosphere of Central City. All the cases KIN had reported were mundane, involving regular crimes.

Not that investigating those crimes wasn't a dangerous business, because it was: "Dahlia" and Kamilla had dodged quite a few bullets in the past four months. Fortunately each woman was constantly armed with a stun gun and knew some self-defense.

Well, _Kamilla_ knew some self-defense. Iris was an amateur MMA fighter at this point.

Barry had predicted Iris' desire to get back to journalism after he had moved them out of Central City without her consent. With her official deceased status and no money in her pockets, the young woman had been completely dependending on him to live for two weeks. During those two weeks she had tried to escape from the manor he had purchased just outside the city no less than ten times. Had the closest neighbors not been over a twenty minutes walk away, Iris might have successfully escaped.

But after all the useless screaming and begging, the reporter had changed strategies to get away from Barry.

_ "You say that I'm a goddess, so I demand that you grant me my freedom," _ Iris had ordered one evening after dinner. _ "I should be able to do whatever I please, shouldn't I?" _

_ "As long as your wishes aren't in conflict with mine," _ he'd specified _ . "I'm a god too, so my demands are as valid as yours. You agreed to stay with me—" _

_ "In Central City!" _ She'd shouted in frustration. _ "Not halfway across the country! Why Keystone City?*" _

_ "That's the first good question you've asked since we moved here," _ he'd pointed out. _ "Why do you think that I chose this city?" _

It was the city where Francine West had raised Wally. A city where street racing was a very popular if sometimes fatal hobby for its competitors. And just like in Central City, many more illegal transactions were taking place during those races.

So once Iris' urge to run away had abated, her journalist instincts had taken over. Very soon the Keystone City police were arresting drug dealers and arms traffickers who'd taken advantage of the races to conduct their businesses, and Iris had provided insightful details about the criminal activities connected to street racing on a blog post under the alias Dahlia Eastwood.

Several journals had contacted her and offered to hire her as an investigative reporter, but even without Barry trying to dissuade her from the idea, Iris had declined them all.

Instead she'd asked him to help her create her virtual newsroom. It had taken the speedster a few days to learn and master all the skills needed to make it happen, but he'd gladly helped Iris realize her dream of owning her own newspaper.

For obvious reasons, she didn't call it The Central City Citizen.

Since then, Barry had also used his forensics scientist skills to help Iris investigate crime scenes missed by or unknown to the KC police.

Though making sure that Iris didn't run away was his primary concern, the speedster had been enjoying spending so much of his time with his once best friend. They were a great team.

But even after six months, Iris wasn't letting them get any closer than friends. On the best of days Barry got brief hugs from her. They laughed together and had a few fights now and then—mostly because of the rare times Iris still tried to run away—and there had even been this one time Iris had let Barry carry her to her bedroom after some overtime in the newsroom, but that was the extent of their mutual physical intimacy.

Which wasn't to say that the time remnant had resigned himself to get scraps of what his original version would have gotten. While six months were nothing next to the time he'd spent to break the time loop and save Iris, the speedster's power of will wasn't very strong in her presence.

He'd stolen his first kiss on the night he had carried Iris to her bedroom, and had been unable to resist tasting her lips or touching her body ever since.

Iris had almost broken his nose with a powerful jab the first time he'd kissed her against the wall of their personal gym. He'd just laughed it off.

She had attempted another escape after the time he'd slipped his hand under her shirt—only because she had hungrily returned his kiss for once.

Last week, Barry had asked Iris if healing his scars would help them revive their romantic relationship. After accusing him of sexual harassment, she'd replied by saying that she wasn't _ his _ Iris, that his Iris was dead and he was in the wrong timeline, so there was no romance to revive.

Oh, he couldn't wait until she found out who she was.

Not only that, but he couldn't wait to see her powers in action. He might have to get her back to Central City for them to manifest, as life in Keystone City was too mundane for her fight or flight response to kick high enough to trigger them.

Barry had hoped to be able to turn on Iris' powers the way she always seemed to trigger his. Maybe her repulsion at his forced affection created a mental block.

"What if the drug was connected to meta-humans?" The speedster asked her while she was carefully chewing on her breakfast.

Her eyes snapped up from her plate to study his face.

"What do you know?" She questioned him calmly, but he easily detected the edge of excitement in her voice.

"Only that CCPD is also investigating the origin of the drug," he informed her casually. "And that Julian Albert found trace amounts of dark matter in the corpses of people who died from overdosing on the drug. It's called 'The Weeper', by the way, not 'Tears'."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I took some creative liberties about the location of Keystone City here. While on the show and in many comics since the 1990s Keystone City is in Kansas, I picked the version that's located in Pennsylvania. I mean, am I supposed to believe that Detective Joe West couldn't find his wife after she'd moved just across the river? And Wally never looked up his father's name or as a huge fan of The Flash never saw Detective Joe West's face? Nah, fam.
> 
> I've left a big hint to the answer of what SaviBarry did to Iris. Can you already guess? If not that's okay, chapter 7 is around the corner.
> 
> Back to Caitlin and Killer Frost next chapter!


	6. Mirror Stop Telling Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin and Frost get in trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I had a lot of fun writing this chapter (which is why it's slightly longer than I planned) so I hope that you'll like it too.
> 
> Chapter title from "Rescue Me" by Kerrie Roberts

** _This is your fault_ **, Killer Frost hissed in their shared mindspace as their body was shoved ahead, a bag covering their head, a thick rope tying up their hands and a power-dampening collar around their neck.

** _If you'd let me kill that guy— _ **she started arguing.

** _You're the one who brought us here! _ ** Caitlin talked back. ** _In an area renowned for being a hub for meta-human criminals! Where Amunet Black conducts her shady business!_**

** _And I was going to become the new leader around here once I showed them how powerful I am! _ ** Frost defended, seething internally. **_But you had to ruin it all and now we're going to be sold to the black market. I am a goddess, not a _slave!**

She felt Caitlin roll her eyes at her, and it was too bad that they couldn't fight in their head, because the ice meta really wanted to throttle the doctor.

** _Team Flash will rescue us,_ ** Caitlin declared just as they got lifted, seated and buckled up in what could only be a van or truck. ** _They know that we're around, and Cisco won't give up until he finds me._ **

The bag was removed from their head, and both women gasped.

There were at least twenty people in what was definitely a large truck container. All of them were tied up and looking scared, some even exhausted and malnourished.

** _The team will definitely find us, _ ** Caitlin asserted. ** _All these metas in one place..._**

** _With power-dampening collars, _ ** Frost pointed out. ** _So it's not like we can be found via some dark matter detector._ **

** _No, but so many power-dampening collars in one place leave a huge energetic signature, _ ** the S.T.A.R. Labs employee explained. **S.T.A.R. Labs, CCPD, A.R.G.U.S and Iron Heights do**.

** _Then how come Amunet has been running this gig for a while now? _ ** The ice meta-human questioned.**_ We only learned about it because we've been around, but that doesn't look like it's her first rodeo selling her own kind._**

Caitlin looked around, and internally groaned in frustration when she saw the wires going around the container, connecting to an electrical box.

** _A signal scrambler,_ ** she informed her alter go just as the truck started moving.

For a peaceful half hour, neither women talked in their shared mental space.

** _So, we are screwed,_ ** Frost summed up, defeated.

** _No, we're not,_ ** Caitlin denied, refusing to give into pessimism. ** _ Cisco can still vibe me, especially now that I have control…_ **

Ever since Frost had run away from Savitar, the doctor had been able to momentarily take control of her body, and she was positive that it was the reason why Vibe and Kid Flash—not Flash himself, though she wasn't surprised—had been close to catching the ice meta-human. Unfortunately, Killer Frost was stronger than the two superheroes combined. Savitar pushing her limits for those two weeks had helped her master her powers.

** _You only have control because of this stupid collar, _ ** Killer Frost argued.**_ And when Cisco takes it off, I'll _ ** **kill** ** _ him,_ ** she threatened.

Caitlin didn't bother responding. All she had to do was to keep that collar on and everything would be alright.

"Caitlin Snow?" A voice at the other end of the row of captured meta-humans called out.

The doctor leaned forward in her restricted seat, and felt her eyes widened as she exchanged looks with Shawna Baez...Peekaboo.

"All this time, you were a meta-human too?" The teleporter asked incredulously.

"You know her?" Some guy next to her asked noncommittally. 

"Yeah, she's friends with The Flash," the thief informed the whole truck.

Caitlin swallowed loudly as all eyes turned towards her.

"The Flash is the reason why I was in this shitty corner of the city in the first place," hissed a very skinny, possibly older man with lips split from dryness, and others echoed his complaints.

"How come he let one of his friends get caught?" The same guy next to Shawna questioned.

He was a young black man with kind eyes, looking healthier and less intimidating than the rest.

"A better question is how come this so-called protector of Central City has been letting this meta-human trafficking going for as long as it has," a blonde woman with a British accent argued, more curious than outraged. "I've been working on this side of town for three years now, and Flash has never cared to make me and my co-workers feel safer!

**_All of these losers are_****_ pathetic_**, Frost declared.**_ When I take back control and kill Amunet, I'll shape them up and make them useful for my goals._**

** _I wish we'd looked more closely for other meta-humans, _ **the doctor lamented, ignoring her megalomaniacal alter ego. _**We were only focused on the criminal ones, so we never prepared to assist those who lived incognito. Some of these people don't look like criminals at all.**_

**Can't help everyone**, the ice meta-human pointed out. ** _If even gods like Savitar don't want to let go of their weaknesses…_ **

** _Of course you think that _ ** **love** ** _ is a weakness,_ ** it was Caitlin's turn to drawl.

** _It is! _ ** Killer Frost insisted. **_The more people you care about, the more liabilities you have! As soon as I get back on my feet, Savitar will know _ ** **my** ** _ wrath. I'll take Iris and torture her right in front of him…_ **

** _I won't let you hurt Iris, _ ** Caitlin warned.**_ Or Cisco, or Julian. I will never let you hurt my friends with my own hands ever again._ **

** _I won't give you a choice, _ ** Frost countered ** _. I'm a goddess. You're just a lowly human—_ **

"Shut up!" Caitlin said out loud, drawing frowned looks from the other prisoners.

"Oh, you went all coo-coo, that's why The Flash and your other friends abandoned you, huh?" Peekaboo mocked her after an awkward silence descended on the misfortuned group.

Caitlin knew that it _ wasn't _ true, her friends had _ not _ abandoned her. She's the one who ran away, _ Killer Frost _took her away from her loved ones.

** _This chick doesn't know the first thing about you, _ ** the ice meta surprisingly defended her. **_Plus, your friends are stubborn in their intention to get you back, especially Cisco._ **

** _It will be their undoing, _ ** Frost added before Caitlin could feel comforted by her alter ego's unexpected words. ** _ And yours. When I kill them all you'll finally disappear. I'll be able to fulfill my destiny, be a true—_ **

** _Say 'goddess' one more time, _ ** Caitlin threatened. ** _ I dare you._ **

** _What you're gonna do? _ ** Frost taunted her. ** _ Knock your own head against the wall? _ **

The screech of tires on the road came just as everyone in the truck got jerked around because of a crazy turn, and Caitlin hit the back of her head against a side of the container.

** _Ow_**, both her and Frost complained.

** _That one's on me,_ ** the ice meta-human admitted as everyone else in the container was groaning and grunting at the unexpected impact.

The sounds of gunshots got everyone quiet in a second, and they all exchanged panicked looks.

"What the heck?" The British lady exclaimed as she casually unbuckled her seat, unlocking and removing her collar in front of a speechless group of kidnapped meta-humans.

Caitlin gasped when she got a good look at the blonde woman: she had heavy makeup on and was dressed in clean black denim and had a utility belt holding a cylindrical container that she flapped open.

** _She's not a prisoner, _ ** Killer Frost guessed. _**This has to be Amunet herself**_**_._ **

A few of the prisoners yelped upon seeing shards of metal levitating out of the container to wrap around the British lady's fist.

Caitlin was worried about whoever was trying to high-jack the truck. This meta-human clearly had telekinetic powers. Or maybe magnetic ones? She wouldn't be carrying those pieces of metal around if she could move anything she wanted.

Background noises of a physical altercation filtered to the truck container. A few loud impacts and gradual silence seemed to be in favor of the intruder.

"Let's see who we have here," the British lady said cheerfully as she extended her arm towards the locked double doors.

The familiar sound of Vibe's air waves resonated, shaking the hinges of the doors until they were ripped open.

And sure enough, Cisco and Wally were standing outside, a lamppost off the road poorly highlighting their silhouettes.

"Watch out!" Caitlin shouted just in time for her teammates to dodge the rain of metallic pieces the blonde woman rained on them.

"Darn it," Amunet grunted before directing a murderous gaze at the doctor.

But before she could fully turn around and step towards her, the criminal disappeared in a gust of wind.

"Caitlin!" Vibe called out happily as he hopped onto the container "I knew you were here."

"I knew you'd come for me," she replied shakily.

**Ugh, please,** Frost complained as Caitlin let tears of joy blur her vision as Cisco unbuckled her from her seat.

Caitlin's air was knocked out of her as her best friend squeezed her into the tightest hug he'd ever given her.

"With all she's gone through and overcome, she's going to die from your suffocating arms," another British voice, male this time, drawled.

"Julian," Caitlin greeted with a chuckle.

Another gust of wind and Wally was back, holding a remote.

"Found that on Amunet," he announced before pressing one of the only two buttons, and Caitlin's heart dropped in her stomach as she heard her collar unlock.

"Wait, Wally!" Both Cisco and Julian shouted.

"Too late," Killer Frost's echoing voice informed them as Caitlin's hair changed color.

** _Noooo!_ ** The doctor shouted, her consciousness locked in her own body again. 

** _Told you,_ ** the ice meta reminded her as she extended both hands and blasted ice on Vibe and Kid Flash.

"Alright, I'm out," Peekaboo announced somewhere in the back before disappearing into the night.

"We need to help these guys," the nice-looking guy next to the now-gone Shawna announced. "They're here to rescue us, and this woman wants us to serve her once she defeats them."

** _A telepath_**, Caitlin realized, hope replacing her despair as the other prisoners removed their deactivated collars and helped each other out of their seats.

** _Whatever their powers…_ **Frost started mentally.

"They're nothing next to mine," she finished as she jumped off the truck container and raised a thick, opaque ice wall to lock back up the other metas into the container.

"Caitlin! _Fight her_, you can do it," Julian encouraged, though he raised his stun gun at Frost, his hands shaking.

Frost glared at him with glowing eyes.

** _Guess I'll kill him first,_ ** she decided as she noted that Cisco and Wally were still both struggling to stand back up, parts otheir bodies still encased in ice.

Her first step towards the CSI was confident, but the closer she got to him, the hardest it was to move.

** _I told you,_ ** Caitlin groaned, straining to take control back, ** _that I wouldn't let you hurt my friends._ **

** _You think that I didn't know that you were gathering your strength? _ **Frost asked rhetorically as she gathered more of her powers, and Caitlin felt her already restricted mental space shrink up.

** _No_ **

** _No no_ **

** _No no no no please…_ **she pleaded, to no one in particular, she just needed someone to help.

**_I managed to freeze up Savitar, _**the ice-meta recounted, **_so fighting you is a piece of cake. No one can help you because no mere human, meta or not, can defeat a goddess like me_**.

The rev of an engine alerted her, and she stepped aside just in time to avoid a riderless motorcycle, wobbling as she slipped down the edge of the asphalt.

The rider came up mere seconds later, almost out of nowhere, their face hidden by a black helmet. In fact the fact that they were dressed all in black was the only thing that Frost had the time process about them as she simultaneously tried to regain her balance and keep track of Julian.

Halfway through Frost's groan when she saw Julian helping Cisco up, the biker brought a powerful fist down her face, making pain shoot through the ice-meta's head as dark stars sparkled behind her eyes.

She heard Caitlin sigh in relief before she lost consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that the biker's identity is as clear as spring water. This still qualifies as a cliffhanger, right?
> 
> Barry's POV next chapter!!!


	7. Did You See The Sparks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry and Joe rush to join Wally, Cisco and Julian, and see Iris.  
Or is it Iris?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually quite wholesome, some mild angst because it's Barry though.  
Warning for mentions of a main character's death.
> 
> Chapter title from "Flares" by The Script.

“He’s stable,” Joe informed Barry outside Central City Memorial Hospital.

The speedster sighed. When he and Joe had found the meta-human whose tears were the active ingredients of the very addictive recreational drug ‘The Weeper,’ they’d thought that he was dead.

Before Barry could congratulate himself for saving one victim of Amunet Black’s illegal activities, an alarm resonated in his earpiece and on Joe’s phone.

“Julian,” Joe said as he checked the message. “Isn’t he with Cis… I mean, Vibe and Kid Flash?” he corrected the names as he saw a few patients and hospital staff members staring at the cop and Flash from a distance..

“They’re in trouble,” Barry guessed. “I’ll be back—”

“Wait, take me with you,” the detective suggested.

“Joe, no,” the speedster refused, not caring that he called the cop by his first name in front of bystanders.

“Hear me out,” Joe requested with a raised hand. “The meta-humans abducted by Amunet Black are likely criminals themselves,” Detective West estimated. “So seeing the Flash isn’t going to make them cooperate. But I bet that they wouldn’t mind dealing with a cop for once. Jail sounds much better than wherever Amunet planned on sending them.”

_ Into the hands of people who see metas as animals, that’s where_, the speedster thought with outrage. 

Barry was angry at himself for not knowing about the meta-human trafficking ring that Amunet Black had clearly been running for a while.

He was angry that he hadn’t even cared about that new drug until he’d stared at the corpse of someone who had overdosed on it, on his and Joe’s first day back at CCPD.

The CSI and detective had both taken a month off to grieve Iris. 

Iris, who _ definitely _ would’ve been the first to run an article about ‘The Weeper’. Had she been there, Team Flash would’ve dismantled Amunet’s network months ago. 

But Iris hadn’t been there, and it had taken the team a lot of time to know where to start digging for info on the drug. That was mostly because Vibe and Kid Flash had their hands full trying to catch Killer Frost. Barry himself had been occupied battling Nazi invaders from another Earth with Team Arrow, Team Supergirl and Team Legends, among other things.

Keeping busy as The Flash had helped Barry not feel like the world had ended, but barely. While one part of him was angry at himself, another was furious that most of Central City didn’t even know that Iris Ann West had died. While her family, friends and co-workers from CCPN and Jitters had showed up to her funeral—Savitar had returned her body two weeks after killing her, bringing it to S.T.A.R. Labs and disappearing right after—that had only amounted to fifty people or so. In a city of _ millions_. Six months after her death, Central City was running as if Iris West had never been an important member of its life, her absence in its streets and establishments unnoticed, just like Iris had feared it would.

_ I’m not afraid to die, Barry, I’m not_, his then girlfriend had claimed. _ What if I end up just like my mom? Just gone without making a mark, without leaving anything behind. _

_ No, she left _ us _ behind, _ Barry convinced himself_. Joe, Wally, me, the rest of her family and friends, the people she helped through her journalism. She lives on in our memory. _

After Joe checked Julian’s location, Barry sped them to the site, somewhere off the ramp to I-57.

He knew something was wrong when he saw the somber faces of Vibe and Wally welcoming him and Joe even as they were brushing off shards of ice from their suits.

“You found Caitlin!” the detective exclaimed happily, and Barry frowned when he saw a woman whose back was facing the group helping Julian set his stun gun on the floor so he could better hold onto an unconscious Caitlin. The Flash imagined that she was a biker, what with her leather suit and the motorcycle lying carelessly by the side of the road.

Who was that stranger that the ever suspicious Julian Albert would trust around a weapon?

“Errr, guys, so,” Cisco stammered when Joe asked him what had happened. “We found the truck transporting all the meta-humans Amunet wanted to sell off to the black market, and Killer Frost was one of them.”

“I knocked out Amunet, she’s in Iron Heights already,” Wally shared before Barry could ask, and why didn’t he sound proud of himself? He’d done well. They all had. 

“So why do you two look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Joe rightfully asked, and just then the biker turned around, and Barry knew that his face transformed to look like _ he _ was seeing a ghost.

Her hair was shorter, shorter than he’d ever seen it, barely grazing her shoulders in its natural curly state. Was she wearing contact lenses? Her eyes were a lighter shade of brown than normal.

And her body…Even through the thick bodysuit, Barry could tell that she looked more fit than ever, her silhouette sharper than even when she’d been in the cheerleader team in high school.

Despite the physical changes, there was no doubt that this was _Iris._

Or so Barry thought for a long, joyful second, until he realized that it was impossible for the love of his life to stand right in front of him.

“Who are you?” Joe shouted as he raised his gun at who logic dictated couldn’t be Iris West.

But the way the woman’s eyes widened in shock and hurt, Barry could’ve sworn that it was his departed fiancée.

“Dad,” she said softly, and her voice sounded the same.

“We need to get Caitlin to S.T.A.R. Labs,” Julian reminded the group.

He was the only one who seemed unaffected by Iris’ sudden return, but it probably was because he was worried about the bruise blooming on the side of Caitlin’s face.

“Right, on it,” Cisco replied before opening a breach, and he helped Julian carry their lost friend home.

That left Wally, Joe, and Barry facing Iris, or whoever this person was pretending to be her.

“I buried my baby girl six months ago, a few days before her twenty-eighth birthday,” Joe bit out as he kept his gun trained on the biker. “So don’t think that you can deceive us passing for Iris.”

“What do you mean, you _ buried me_?” the Iris look-alike questioned in shock. “Savitar didn’t kill me, not really, I _ don’t know_…But he used the Philosopher’s Stone to heal me, and I’ve been with him since. You have to believe me, dad! Wally! _Barry_!”

Her voice broke on Barry’s name, and he wanted to believe her, but his brain just couldn’t accept it.

“Savitar wouldn’t be alive if Iris had survived past the day she was supposed to die,” he reasoned out loud. “The paradox would’ve reached him and he would have ceased to exist.”

That had to be the reason why Barry’s time remnant had kept Iris’ body for two weeks: to make sure that she wasn’t revived somehow. 

“Savitar has changed,” fake Iris claimed with a quick shake of her head, the sweep of her shorter curls strange to Barry’s sight. “He’s…odd, he claims to have achieved godhood and whatnot. Most of the time he’s normal but—”

“Normal?” Wally echoed as he cut her off. “The guy’s a psychopath, a killer, a manipulator, a false god, and he killed y…He killed _ my sister! _”

“I meant normal as…” the false Iris tried to amend as she glanced at Barry, and he refused to understand what she meant.

Her trying to defend Savitar had just _ proven _ that she wasn’t Iris.

“One of you take care of this imposter before I shoot her,” Joe requested harshly.

“Gladly,” Kid Flash volunteered before speeding towards the woman with Iris’ face.

Barry gasped as he saw blue lightning spark around the stranger’s body the moment Wally touched her.

“What the hell?” the golden speedster exclaimed as he wrenched his hand away from her and took quick steps back from the false Iris. “My speed! _ It’s gone!_”

“A meta-human!” Joe declared. “I knew it!” he added before shooting at the woman’s leg.

Barry saw her open her mouth in horror, _ not _ in slow motion, but at the same speed as he was tracking the bullet. He saw her realizing that she was indeed moving as fast as a speedster, and with a snap of that blue lightning, she stepped aside to avoid the bullet.

Before time resumed as normal, her eyes met Barry’s, and though her eyes were the wrong color, their size and shape conveyed the same message Iris would if it had been her.

_ Did you see that? _

“A speedster,” Wally confirmed when he and Joe noticed that she had sped to the side.

“Wait! I don’t know what’s going on!” fake Iris claimed as she raised her hands in surrender, her voice getting emotional. “I think that Savitar did something to me…”

“Savitar’s lightning is blue too, when he’s in his armor,” Joe recalled as he glanced at Barry.

“Like Zoom’s,” Wally quickly added. “And we know what those two have in common.”

Barry wanted to agree, but something felt off. Something about the blue lightning on this woman was familiar.

_ Who are you? _ He asked her internally, and as if she’d heard his question, her eyes locked with his.

“Barry, please, you have to _believe me_,” she pleaded, her voice vibrating slightly, making her bring a hand to her lips. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she reiterated.

The scarlet speedster believed her on that point. This was not someone who was used to having powers. She made aborted movements left and right, back and forth, just like the time Barry had lost his memories and discovered his powers. She even yelped at her own lightning snapping a bit loudly around her.

“Alright, enough,” Joe declared as he rushed to grab Julian’s stun gun on the floor.

“Wait, Joe!” Barry requested before his father figure could hurt the stranger.

Right then, another breach opened, and Cisco returned.

“I forgot to tell you about the other metas still stuck in there,” the breacher said as he pointed at the back of the truck, sealed off by a wall of ice. “Courtesy of Killer Frost.”

“Vibe, open a breach to the pipeline,” Barry requested as an idea came to him.

They needed to help the other meta-humans, so for now locking up this imposter was the best course of action.

“Sure,” Cisco agreed right away, catching up on Barry’s idea without a word.

Unfortunately, fake Iris seemed to guess his intention too.

“No,” she objected as her lightning suddenly disappeared. “I’ve been a prisoner for _ six months_,” she informed, her voice breaking. “I’m not getting locked up again, not by _ you! _”

“We won’t hurt you,” Barry promised, but she was already running towards her bike.

“Damn it,” Cisco said before extending a hand towards the imposter, aiming for the ground just to scare her.

But in the next second, the false Iris was gone, her bike abandoned.

“What the hell? Where did she go?” Joe demanded, shock and layers of anger and grief coloring his face as he turned towards Barry. “Did you see which way she went?”

No, Barry hadn’t seen anything other than a trail of golden speedster lightning.

Savitar.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next are being posted together because I couldn't leave you waiting for the ultimate answer. Leave your guess here though, then read chapter 8 to see if you were right!


	8. Just Gonna Stand There And Hear Me Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The answer to the one million dollars question: what did Savitar do to Iris?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm rubbing my hands together like a psycho lmao. Hope that everything will finally make sense!
> 
> Chapter Title from "Love The Way You Lie Part 2" by Rihanna. (Does anyone actually listen to the songs?)

“I told you,” he spoke so softly, his voice deceptively sweet as he wiped away her tears, kneeling by the couch he had gently sat her on.

“I told you that they wouldn’t want anything with you,” he added, this time sweeping her hair behind her ears. “Joe tried to shoot you, Wally wanted to knock you down, and _ he _ tried to lock you up.”

** _Guess the two Barrys are more alike than they’d like_**, the cynical voice in Iris' head drawled.

It wasn’t her conscience, not really, but from being a psychology major in college, Iris knew that it was the part of her brain that helped her cope with Savitar.

A crazy side to her subconscious so that she herself wouldn’t go insane from interacting with Barry’s crazy time remnant.

She hadn’t expected to get broken by Barry himself, by his rejection.

** _Your future hubby was nice, considering, _ ** cynical voice chimed in. ** _ It’s your father and brother who went all extreme. Seriously, what a way to welcome a goddess…_ **

Iris cried anew, despair seizing her even as she refused to talk back to the voice in her head.

She’d been so glad to return to Central City, to return _ home_, and she had been excited to reunite with everyone, to feel _ normal _ again.

She hadn’t questioned Savitar’s willingness to let her go as long as she promised to return. It had sounded like a reward for her being so docile the past few weeks. 

Iris had thought that she had fooled him into trusting her, calling him Barry and getting along with him. To be quite frank, Iris had fooled herself too, because it had been so easy to look past his scars and see the man she knew so well.

Unless he brought up the whole ‘being a god’ talk, Savitar sounded normal. Kind, generous, funny, smart…All that Iris loved in Barry, except the adorable awkwardness. So _ yes_, that one time he had kissed her softly, almost hesitantly—because the last time he’d done it she'd punched him hard—Iris had _ returned _ his affection, craving the intimacy she missed so much from her fiancé. But his touch had felt too hungry, too possessive as he slipped a hand under her shirt.

Like he hadn’t touched her in _ centuries._

She should’ve tried harder to run away after that time. Iris had been so close to reaching the first neighbors when the speedster had caught up to her.

** _Did you really want to leave, though? _ ** Cynical voice asked, skeptical. ** _ Dude’s crazy, but he treats you right. Look around you, girl, you’re like royalty, just that he lets you work too._ **

That was true. The rolls-royce catching dust in the driveway was proof that Savitar wouldn’t refuse her anything as long as she stayed with him. As long as she renounced her former life, like he worded it.

** _Technically your former life is the one who just renounced you, _ ** cynical voice pointed out. ** _ You’re lucky your godly new boyfriend was around to save you. Were you seriously trying to run away from a cop, a breacher and a speedster with a bike?_ **

“How did you know where I was?” Iris asked, and realized how dumb her question was.

“Barry’s memories,” she answered herself, failing to keep her voice neutral.

So he’d seen how distrustful the team had been when she’d removed her helmet, though Julian had believed her on faith when she’d placed the power-dampening collar on Killer Frost.

He’d seen how her own father had pointed a gun at her, how Wally had grabbed her painfully, willing to punch her in the face—**_boy didn’t learn his lesson from last time_**—and how Barry had quickly asked Cisco to lock her up in the pipeline.

“Did you enjoy it?” Iris asked as she stared at Savitar’s mismatched eyes. “Seeing me being shunned—”

“I didn’t enjoy it, not any more than I enjoyed being shunned myself,” he answered calmly. “That’s why I warned you, Iris. You didn’t believe me, but you saw it for yourself.”

“So that’s the reason you let me go,” the reporter guessed, fresh tears rolling down her face.

“You had to solve the mystery of The Weeper first and foremost,” he corrected with a slow shake of his head. “You’re an investigative journalist, uncovering the truth behind criminal activities is what you do. I couldn’t stop you from doing your job, even though I suspected that you’d cross paths with Team Flash.”

“I didn’t find the meta-human behind the drug,” Iris admitted as she knuckled away some of her tears, talking about the case bringing some clarity back to her mind. “Amunet’s subordinates said that The Flash had taken him. He’s probably in a hospital now.”

“Central City Memorial Hospital,” the speedster confirmed. “I can take you there, if you want. You could have an exclusive interview.”

“That’s okay,” Iris declined with a shrug. “Just tell me when CCPD plans on publishing a report on the case and I’ll have my article ready too.”

“Alright,” the time remnant agreed after a moment of silence during which he searched her eyes.

“Did you have lunch? I made lasagna—”

“Stop!” Iris demanded as she stood from her seat, making him rock backwards on his heels to avoid a collision.

“Stop being nice, stop treating me so well to make me forget that I’m your _ prisoner!_” she requested.

“I don’t treat you well enough,” he denied, looking at her in his intense way, “because you won’t _ let me_.”

“How much better, short of truly giving me my freedom, could you treat me?” she questioned, half-amused half-exasperated. “Before my flight to Central City we had a French breakfast, the food directly from _ France_. Look at this place. I don’t even spend the money I make with K.I.N. I live like a queen.”

“You’re not a queen, you’re a _ goddess_,” he corrected her firmly as he stood up too.

“No, I’m a...speedster?” she countered, unsure. “Earlier, I felt…It was so weird. I’m not sure I like having powers. Especially speedsters powers. There are so many speedsters already, I would’ve preferred to feel more special,” she confessed with a self-deprecating chuckle.

“You are special, Iris,” he assured her as he stepped closer. “And no, you’re not a speedster. You’re a lightning rod.”

“A what?” she asked, though she’d heard him say that before.

_ That makes you my goddess, Iris. My lightning rod. _

“Explain,” she demanded curtly, sick of being confused. “Explain what my powers are, and explain why my father said that he _ buried me _ himself.” 

She saw a hint of satisfaction in the slight curl of the time remnant’s lips.

He_ loved it _when she was authoritative, when she gave orders, when she took charge.

He loved it when she was as unapologetic once in a while, the way _he_ was unapologetic twenty-four seven.

“Living most of my life in the Speed Force had his perks,” he started as he sat on the couch. “It likes me, by the way, more than it likes other speedsters. Has a weird way of showing it, but it does. It likes you too, by association.”

“Barry,” she chided him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It told me how every speedster has a lightning rod,” he got back on track with an apologetic wave of his hand. “Another soul to anchor the speedster to their world, in case they ever get lost in the vastness of the Speed Force or in time travel.”

Iris remembered how she’d managed to get Barry back from that blue void whereas Cisco hadn’t, despite being able to breach into the Speed Force.

“So a lightning rod is like a speedster's soulmate?” she questioned, feeling silly for saying so but it just felt right.

Iris had taken some time to acknowledge it, but her and Barry had always been meant to be together. Not just because some article from the future had said so, or that their doppelgangers on Earth-2 were married, but because the choices they had made consciously as individuals from the moment they had met until now had made them the perfect fit for each other.

“More like only an approximation of a soulmate can be a speedster's lightning rod,” Savitar rephrased. “I say approximation because the other person doesn’t have to be a friend or a lover. It could be an enemy.”

“What?” Iris exclaimed, feeling panic weaken her legs.

“Not you and I,” he added, blinking at her in a way that told her that he wanted to roll his eyes at her ridiculousness. “Barry and Eobard Thawne. That’s partly why Thawne is still around. The versions that didn’t die upon Eddie’s death get drawn to time periods and timelines when Barry’s at a crossroad in his journey as a speedster. Thawne doesn’t call himself the Reverse Flash just to sound cool. He _knows_ deep down that The Flash is quintessential to his own existence. He’s drawn to Barry like the negative side of a magnet is drawn to the positive one.”

“You say 'Barry' as if that doesn’t include you,” the reporter noted. “You’re Barry too, just a few years from now—”

“More on that in a moment,” the time remnant cut her off. “So, lightning rods tether speedsters to specific timelines, specific realities. They are soulmates, in that they’re a perfect fit for the speedster, in a positive or a negative way. Lightning rods are connected to the Speed Force, but are not necessarily speedsters themselves. _ You’re _ not.”

“I dodged a bullet,” Iris recounted. “Which I saw moving slowly. If I’m not a speedster, how could I do that?”

“Remember Cisco’s wizard’s wand?” the speedster asked, and Iris nodded. “You’re like that to a speedster. You can absorb and temporarily generate a speedster’s lightning, and ultimately you can amplify a speedster’s powers, but you’re not one yourself.”

“How’s that being a goddess?” the journalist asked, disappointed. “How is that being my own person, if my powers depend on another?”

Savitar had the nerves to chuckle.

“It’s the other way around,” he argued. “Where would Barry, where would _ I _ be without you? A speedster without a lightning rod gets easily lost. That goes for Thawne too. He keeps circling around The Flash, even lost his powers when he travelled to a time when there was no Flash because then his lightning rod didn’t truly exist. He had to wait to create The Flash himself to become powerful again.”

“But lightning rods don’t need speedsters,” he added with a wave at Iris, “you don’t need me any more than Barry needs Thawne to be the best version of yourself, Iris. And don’t forget that you literally sucked out Wally’s speed force. It will come back, he barely touched you, you didn’t take it _ from him_.”

“Are you saying that I can…” the reporter couldn’t finish her question.

“Permanently take away a speedster’s powers? Yes,” the time remnant finished for her and answered, extended his arm up towards her.

“You could unmake me just as easily as you could make me, Iris West,” he uttered, his gaze reverent as he smiled up at her shocked face. “If you wanted it badly enough, and if you mastered your powers, you could take away everything that you think gives me an edge over you. Well, everything you _ thought _ gives me an edge over you. You know better now.”

“I’d still have to touch you first,” the reporter argued. “I’m not fast enough to play tag with you.”

“Like I would ever run away from you,” Savitar replied, his voice dropping an octave in a seductive way.

**_He definitely wouldn’t_**, cynical voice chimed in.

“You explained my powers,” Iris stated firmly, ignoring the time remnant’s appraising gaze. “Now explain what my dad said. That he _ buried me_.”

“He buried the other Iris,” the speedster simply repeated. “The one I killed. That’s not you anymore.”

“You’re not making any sense!” the journalist shouted as she threw her hands in the air. “Stop with the cryptic words and speak plainly!”

“I am speaking plainly Iris,” he maintained, tilting his head to the side. “It’s like you said earlier: that I’m Barry _ too_.”

_ Oh my God, _ Iris though to herself, ignoring the ** _ no pun intended_ ** from the other voice in her head.

She was a _ time remnant. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can hear some of you wonder about the technicalities, but just embrace the truth for now. It's supposed to set you free.  
Two chapters at once means that I might not update again this week, but maybe I will!


	9. Don't You Love In Vain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KillerVibe! KillerVibe! KillerVibe! KillerVibe! KillerVibe!  
...and a bit of plot at the end, lol.
> 
> Chapter title from "Happy" by Leona Lewis.

She recognized the smells first.

A mixture of clean linen, ethanol, strawberry Jell-O, and _ Cisco _.

_ Home._

"Hey," his voice was the next thing that her temporal lobe processed, followed by the brush of his fingers along her left cheekbone, and a few synaptic connections later Caitlin was happily drowning in a cocktail of dopamine and endorphins.

That's how Cisco made her feel just by being next to her: safe, warm, and cared for.

Pleasantly surprised not to hear Killer Frost drawl about her being all sappy, the doctor blinked her eyes open and felt herself smile, then wince when she felt the ache by her right temple.

"Ow," she whined as she lifted her hand to touch the tender area.

Cisco intercepted it, trapping her fingers between his two hands and dropping a kiss on her knuckles.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you," he advised with a smirk. "Whoever that chick is, she packs a punch. How do you feel, apart from that hit?"

"Good," Caitlin answered as she gripped one of his hands and used it as leverage to sit up in the infirmary bed. "Cisco…"

It felt so silly to cry now that she was finally back among loved ones, but she couldn't help it.

At least no one else was there, it was just her and her best friend, who used their linked hands to gently pull her towards him and wrap her in his arms.

"Sorry it took me so long to find you," he spoke into her hair. "I felt blind-sided most of the time. These powers are so wishy-washy..."

"No, they're not," she corrected him as she leaned away to look at his face. "You don't have much of a connection with Killer Frost, so you can't see her as easily as you can see me in your visions. It was hard for me to break through when we were with Savitar…He was making her stronger, physically and mentally. But they had a fallout and Frost felt betrayed by him and I was able to take some control back. That's when you started showing up with Wally. Because it was easier for us to connect when I had control of my body."

"Oh," he reacted quietly, but remained speechless for a while.

Caitlin felt her cheeks heat up when she realized what her explanation had sounded like.

She'd made it sound like they were _ soulmates _ or something silly like that.

"I mean! It's scientifically plausible…right?" She sputtered, looking down to hide her embarrassment. "It's all brain waves and quantum energy and—"

The rest of her words got muted by Cisco as he _ kissed _ her. 

Caitlin’s body bypassed her brain’s permission and immediately returned the kiss, and within seconds the light pecks turned into a full on, lip-locking, tongue-dancing, shivers-inducing kiss, which was great because her brain was still stuck on the fear that this moment could be the most awkward in her life.

Instead, it was possibly the most positively mind-blowing moment of her life.

Caitlin Snow had exchanged great kisses with other guys: Marc Crews in college, Ace Michaels in med school, Ronnie, and even Jay—no, _ Hunter _.

But none of those great kisses had been exchanged with a person she had known for almost eight years, and with whom she had shared so many intense experiences.

All the challenging and exciting years as they worked under who they'd thought was Harrison Wells; the despair of losing Ronnie and of seeing their mentor's dream crushed under the rubble of the particle accelerator; the awe at what Barry could do; the irregular hours as monitoring Central City became their duty; the sense of betrayal as Eobard Thawne's secret was uncovered; finding Ronnie then losing him all over again; having their understanding of the universe challenged repeatedly; having their lives turned upside down and being swept into the whirlwind of The Flash's tumultuous one; trying their best to guide Barry as he battled faster and faster speedsters, but never truly winning, and losing part of their own identity, part of their _ realities _ as their friend played with the space-time continuum…

The good and the bad, the victories and the losses, the comical moments and the tragedies. Every milestone of Caitlin's life for the past seven years, she'd experienced it with Cisco by her side. She had been shaped by her interaction with this brilliant, generous, funny young man, and she felt blessed to still have him around when she could have lost him time and time again. Despite their few intense fights at the beginning of the year, Caitlin knew that she could always count on her best friend to be there for her, even if it was just to sit by her while she had a mental breakdown.

Falling in love with Cisco hadn't happened overnight, Caitlin knew that. Though she had never seen him as a brotherly figure, the bioengineer had quickly put the mechanical engineer in a compartment of her heart labeled 'don't mess it up'. In a world where normalcy was a luxury, Caitlin had fought to keep her relationship with Cisco the one constant in her life, though every new battle against the villain of the week had pushed them closer without her noticing, just like she hadn't noticed her heart slowly healing from losing Ronnie.

Also, she could admit it now, Caitlin had been scared of her relationship curse. After her meta-human husband had sacrificed himself to save Central City from a singularity and her love interest from a parallel universe ended up being the time remnant of a psychopathic speedster who got murdered by his own original version, she hadn't been willing to risk having the most important person in her life killed because of her bad luck in the romance department.

Thus, she had ignored the lingering glances, the soft touches, and the shy smiles that they'd both been exchanging for the past year or so, and when Cynthia had caught Cisco’s attention Caitlin had thought that she’d just been imagining his attraction to her.

But it hadn’t worked out between the two breachers, and now Caitlin wasn’t going to play it safe anymore. Not after the nightmare that she had lived through, feeling trapped in her own body while Killer Frost had full control of it.

Not when either of them could die the next day, now that Savitar had supposedly achieved godhood.

Not now that Caitlin knew how amazing it felt to be kissed by the man who had been her emotional compass for years.

And definitely not right this moment as Cisco was stirring a fire in her body that she hadn't felt in a while. And she wasn't scared of getting burned by love this time. 

Fire was the best way to fight _ice_, after all.

Would it be too bold to slide her free hand under his shirt? There was initiative and there was _ shamelessness_…

The sound of clattering made Caitlin and Cisco jump away from each other before turning around to see the origin of the noise.

They both blinked at Julian, who was crouched down and trying to fish out a tablet tangled up in the cables of a vital sign monitor.

"Hey, did you get the results?" Cisco asked as he completely turned towards the CSI, but he didn't take away the hand that was still linked to hers.

"What? Oh, yeah, right, _ the results _!" The newest addition to their team stuttered before managing to tug the tablet free from the wires—Caitlin was still too stunned by the kiss to chide him about manhandling expensive equipment.

"So, ahem," the British scientist cleared his throat as he tapped a few times on the tablet, "RRBS* reads reveal a statistically significant increase in the methylation of Caitlin's meta gene promoters, though it is incomplete in multiple…"

"English," the mechanical engineer cut him off, making Caitlin chuckle.

"My meta-gene is currently suppressed, but probably still poised for activation…" she started but trailed off, bringing her hand to her neck.

No power-dampening collar.

"You figured out a cure?" she questioned the two young men. "A meta-gene suppressor?"

She saw Cisco wince quietly before he turned his head to look at her.

"We didn't," he informed her. "Your mother did."

"My mother?" Caitlin repeated. "I haven't seen her in months. She didn't have the slightest idea on how to help me…"

"That was _ before _ she dug into your father's research," Julian chimed in. "Dr. Thomas Snow was a brilliant geneticist…"

"My father's research?" The doctor echoed, searching Cisco's eyes, and shaking her head when she found sympathy within their warmth.

"You didn't become a meta-human on the night of the particle accelerator explosion," he informed her quietly, his voice almost a whisper.

"No," she tried to deny as she kept shaking her head, and squeezed Cisco's hand to brace herself for the news.

"You have been a meta for most of your life, Cait," he added. "Your father modified your DNA when you were five years old."

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, did Caitlin's dad not experiment on her in the original timeline or...? That show plays too much with people's lives!
> 
> *RRBS= reduced representation bisulfite sequencing. In a nutshell, it's one of the most precise ways to identify differentially-methylated regions of the DNA (methylated gene promoters usually correlate with silenced/suppressed genes). The whole procedure sounds tedious but it's very cool!
> 
> Heads up, the fic is about to earn its E-rating. I'll put appropriate warnings in the concerned chapters.


	10. Leave Behind Your Heartache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry (Savitar) wears Iris out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Savitar is his own warning, and there's a lot of overt and covert emotional and mental manipulation here, and it's not unilateral, as is shown in the next chapter (don't forget to read that one too).  
FYI, SaviBarry isn't a reliable narrator.
> 
> Chapter title from song "Natural" by Imagine Dragons.

Iris was usually good at hiding her stress. Barry hadn’t known that until Eddie’s death, and back then he had been awed at how she would turn his awkward, stilted attempts to comfort her for the loss of her fiancé into inspiring speeches meant to cheer him up from feeling like a failure as a hero.

This was one more trait that distinguished Barry from his original version*, from his sorry excuse of a first draft: he _ saw _ Iris.

He could remove the rose-tinted lenses through which he gazed at the most beautiful woman in the world and _ see _ someone who had mastered the art of putting the needs of others over her own. He saw the person who gave so much of her time and energy to family, friends, colleagues and lovers that she barely had any left for herself. He saw the people-pleasing behavior behind her façade of assertiveness.

Before her death, it had been easy for her to distract herself from her problem and work on fixing others’. Usually Barry was the one who needed to be cheered up, or Joe needed to be appeased about his worry for her or Barry, and more recently helping Wally adjust to life in Central City and as a speedster had also been a good way to channel her restlessness.

But _now_ it was just her and him.

After she wrapped up with the K.I.N team in the virtual newsroom or had a drink with Kamilla after a stakeout, Iris had no one to distract her from the emotions bottling up in her heart.

Barry would gladly listen to her venting whatever was on her mind, but he knew that she held him responsible for her misery. She had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since she found out that she was a time remnant. Five days and counting.

She still greeted him and wished him good night or announced her departure to meet Kamilla—she had been raised by Joe West, after all—but other than that she pretended that he didn’t exist. She probably could detect him whenever he followed her outside of the house, but she never looked in his direction even when he was easy to spot.

She might have lasted another week without talking to him, but Barry saw, in slow motion, how her resolve crashed down when she fled KC Jitters to avoid being seen by Deborah Thawne, Eddie’s mother.

Barry sped to a Thai food place and ordered all of Iris' favorites before she could make it back to the manor by car—not the Rolls-Royce he had entirely emptied one of his offshore bank accounts for, but an inconspicuous sedan she had bought with her own money.

Before Iris arrived, the speedster had the time to take a shower, get a quick bite (read: he wolfed down six pizzas), and to tinker with the mute version of Gideon in his suit.

When Iris did arrive, she threw him a quiet 'hey' before disappearing to her side of the mansion, leaving him to sit alone on a stool at the breakfast table where he'd set up the Thai food.

Barry was itching to run her a bath and get her some gourmet appetizers from Italy (no wine or champagne though, because she would probably drink herself into oblivion), or to even take her on a retail therapy session at the mall. He was also daydreaming of giving her an orgasm or two to get her cortisol levels down, but he wasn’t suicidal enough to even attempt to steal a kiss from her right now.

When Iris returned, freshly showered, to finally help herself to the food, Barry was a bit alarmed by her dazed look. If she'd cried in the shower, there was no residual redness or puffiness to her eyes to confirm it.

“I didn’t visit his grave this year,” Iris said quietly after ten minutes of silence. She was staring at a piece of broccoli held between her disposable chopsticks. “It never crossed my mind.”

_Eddie's grave_. To be quite honest, Barry himself had forgotten all about the deceased detective. He'd definitely overlooked the fact that Keystone City was Thawne's hometown.

“You were dealing with the advent of your own death,” he bluntly pointed out. “That’s understandable.”

She put down the chopsticks and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, taking a long breath.

"The advent of my own death?" She repeated with outrage. "Oh, you must really be a god, to be so _ detached _ from the pain you've caused me and countless others. To the thousands of your worshippers, to Barry, to the team…”

“I'm not," he objected calmly.

When he’d decided to become a god to save Iris’ life, Barry had believed that he would be rid of all the pain that festered in his heart and tainted his soul. He’d thought that as a god, he wouldn’t feel any pain.

He’d been _ wrong_. 

“You should have just killed me and left me alone,” Iris lamented as tears gathered in her eyes, and it _ hurt _ Barry to hear her say that, even though he was aware that it was her pain making her utter such terrible words.

“I’m not even…” she started, trailed off as she ran her wrist across her face to wipe her tears, “I’m not even _ the real Iris _.”

“Do you not _ feel _ real?” he asked her as he stood from his seat and walked around the counter to stand by her side, reaching out to thumb away more tears.

“Do you not breathe, see, hear, touch, taste, smell?” he questioned softly as he cupped her cheek.

She was shaking now, likely from the effort of sitting still, but whether it was because she wanted to evade his touch or because she wanted more physical contact, Barry couldn’t tell.

“Do you not walk, talk, sleep, eat?” he continued as he gently tipped her head back so she could look him in the eyes. “Do you not _ suffer_?”

That made her cry harder, which was exactly what he’d been going for. He let Iris pull away from his hand and hide her face behind her own as she wept audibly.

“You said…you said that—that you’d give me everything I ever _ wanted _ ,” she recalled between sobs. “I _don’t_ want to suffer, I don’t want the_ pain_! That’s all I knew for the months preceding my…”

“Pain is inevitable, Iris,” he informed her quietly, and kept a neutral face when she glared at him in response.

“What? So _gods_ are subjects to pain too?” she mockingly inquired. “Shouldn’t they be better than mere mortals in that prospect?”

“Gods are superior to humans because they manipulate their world effortlessly,” he told her. “This fact applies to the experience of pain too.”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to _pretend_ that the pain isn’t there, and it will miraculously go away?” Iris asked bitterly, her voice watery.

“No, you shouldn’t ignore pain,” Barry corrected her. “Pain is the best indicator of _ life_, the ultimate proof of existence and sentience. You should _ never _ ignore it, Iris.”

He took the seat right next to her, and was pleased that she didn’t rebuff his proximity, but simply looked at him curiously. Inquisitively, even.

“You should embrace pain,” he advised her, and was undeterred by her deep frown. “Let it in, Iris, take it all. Then channel it, control it, and _ transform _ it into something better.”

“What good could possibly come out of pain?” the reporter asked him skeptically.

“Determination,” he answered right away, speaking from experience. “The determination to change your environment so that you won’t have to experience the same pain again.”

“Right,” Iris reacted, unimpressed.

“And I'd like to remind you that, if only you took what you wanted, then your happiness would outweigh your pain,” he pointed out. “What do you want, Iris?”

“I want to go home!” she lied, making him sigh.

“I told you that lying was unbefitting of a goddess,” he reminded her. “You will never be a true one if you insist on embracing untruths…”

“Are you kidding me?” she exclaimed as she stood from her stool. “I’m _ not _ lying! I want to go home! That’s what I’ve wanted the most ever since you brought me here!”

“That’s what you wanted the most _ until last week_,” he argued, “until you _ did _ go home and got _ shunned _ by Joe, Barry and Wally.”

Iris froze, eyes wide on him.

“What. Do you. Want, Iris?” he asked her again, more firmly this time.

He watched as emotions warred on her face: outrage, sadness, anger, then hesitation, before determination finally won.

_ Say it_, the speedster encouraged her in his head.

“I want the world to know that I’m alive,” she answered with her chin lifted.

“Even though you’re not the original Iris West?” he tested her.

“The old Iris West is dead,” she replied without missing a beat. “That’s not me anymore. I’m the new Iris. The _ better _ Iris.”

“A goddess,” he specified, anticipating the head shake she gave him.

“I’m not a goddess,” she denied. “Having powers and trying to achieve enlightenment or whatever doesn’t make me one.”

“I’ve told you before, how one becomes a deity,” he hinted.

He smiled when she blinked at him, her lips parting in a silent exclamation as she remembered.

“'You just have to make people believe you are',” she quoted. “I don’t want that. I don’t need anyone to worship me. I just need my identity and my career back.”

“I never asked you what you _ need _” Barry pointed out with a slow shake of his head. “I asked you what you _ want_,” he reiterated as he briefly stared at her lips before holding her gaze.

She looked away, and quickly removed her bottom lip from between her teeth when she realized that she had subconsciously bit it.

“I answered you,” she told him defensively.

“For the world to know that you’re alive? That will be easy to do,” he asserted. “But that’s not all that you want. I promised to give you _ everything _ that you ever wanted.”

He took another step towards her, and smiled when she stood her ground and stared back at him with fire in her eyes.

She barely tensed as he bent over her and aligned his lips to her ear.

“What do you _ want_, Iris?” he whispered, a blue charge of electricity snapping between them where he’d unconsciously held onto her forearm.

For a second the speedster worried that the electric shock would lead Iris to deny herself again, but then he felt her hand on his chest, and he obediently took a step back when she pushed him firmly.

“I want you,” she admitted, at last. “I want _you_, Barry.”

There were traces of embarrassment and guilt in the heated gaze that she appraised him with, but the speedster knew that he could get rid of both in due time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated!


	11. I Can't Say I Came Prepared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris didn't actually gave in to SaviBarry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning#1 for explicit sex, but it's not even cute or sexy or whatever because warning #2 emotional manipulation/abuse and warning #3 dubious consent.
> 
> Chapter title from "Un-thinkable" by Alicia Keys.

Iris still vividly remembered the first time she and Barry had made love. It was an unforgettable experience.

She had been thoroughly put to shame for ever thinking that her nerdy best friend would be an insecure, fumbling lover. Well, her brain hadn’t actually process the shame since it had been solely focused on _pleasure._

It was as if Barry had somehow found and read a book on _ The Science of Sex with Iris West_, because every single one of his touches, kisses and strokes had hit the spot. She would’ve found it scary hadn’t she been able to blow his mind just as effectively in return.

It’s not that sex with her adorable boyfriend then fiancé became boring afterwards, but there had been a sense of urgency on Barry’s part during that first time that didn’t emerge again, not even when he’d started having visions of her death (probably because he didn’t want her to suspect that something was wrong). And Iris had been fine with not being overwhelmed every single time she was intimate with Barry.

With _ that _ Barry, at least. With her fiancé.

“Iris,” _ this _ Barry moaned before sucking the skin below her ear, a spot that had never seemed very sensitive until the time remnant had been given access to it.

She almost came from the extra layer of stimulation, but managed to hold on by jerking her head away from his grip on her hair, the sting to her scalp preventing her from tipping over.

Maybe in a few weeks she'd get turned on by that bit of pain, too. The time remnant was slowly making her adopt kinks she never knew she had. Sex with him _ was _ overwhelming _ every single time_.

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologized straight away, not giving her the time to reassure him that he wasn’t to blame, kissing her softly as his fingers massaged the tender spot on her scalp.

“Fuck, _ Barry,_” she whined, feeling even more stimulated than by the kiss below her ear.

She lost her rhythm astride him, but he simply took over, bringing both hands to her hips and rocking her front and back rather than resuming her up and down movement. The new friction made her moan embarrassingly loud—again, it's not like she had the mental faculty to process any emotion other than unbridled bliss—as she came for the second time that day.

** _Orgasm #2 and it's only seven am, _ **cynical voice helpfully pointed out.

Iris ignored her crazy voice, which was easy to do when she was savoring her post-coitus daze.

With her pleasure taken care of, Barry actively sought his own, planting his feet on the bed and thrusting up into her with wild abandon. His quiet grunts were further muffled as he plastered his lips on Iris’ shoulder, but she grabbed his face with both hands and made him face her.

“No, look at me,” she ordered him authoritatively, and at first he kept his eyes stubbornly shut, but then a particularly powerful stroke made Iris moan from overstimulation and his eyes snapped open, wide with concern even as they were dark with lust.

“It’s okay,” she reassured him, kissing the words onto his lips, “_look at me,_” she reiterated her command.

She knew that he was self-conscious about his scars and his discolored right eye, though he seemed reluctant to heal his old injury.

But Iris didn’t mind. He didn’t look any less handsome with those marks, and anyway they helped her physically distinguish him from the original Barry Allen.

** _Let me get this straight, _ **cynical voice chimed in as Iris whispered “come on, Bear, come for me” while her eyes locked onto the time remnant's mismatched ones.

** _You still want to be with Barry Allen 1.0 even though you are Iris 2.0, _ ** the voice summarized, ** _but you’re fucking the Barry Allen who created you after killing Iris 1.0. _ **

“Iris!” he grunted as he reached his climax, and she peppered kisses on both sides of his face as he came down from his high, wrapping his arms around her middle and sloppily kissing her in turn.

** _I mean, he is a good lay,_ ** the flippant voice resumed. ** _But it's still cheating. You know that, right?_ **

This time, guilt ruined Iris' mood, and she hid her frustration behind a sigh of pleasure as Barry massaged a crick in her neck after he eased them both down on their sides, facing each other on the queen bed—they were actually in a guest bedroom. Iris' bed was a dramatic king-size canopy bed, and she guessed that her captor's bed was just as grand.

"I love you," the speedster murmured before kissing Iris' forehead, and thankfully he didn't wait for her reply before he rolled out of bed to dispose of the condom and clean up in the bathroom.

The reporter forced herself to enjoy the lingering rush of endorphins despite her unease at what she'd just done.

** _You should ask for a third orgasm, _ ** the voice in her head suggested. ** _ Today's going to be stressful._ **

That was true.

Iris had scheduled a meeting with her team in the virtual newsroom, and she was going to reveal her true identity. She was also going to ask her employees for a strategy on how to sell the (fake) story of her faked death. The key component of her story would be the facial transmogrification device, which Iris would say she had used on a random corpse to dupe even her family and friends.

It went against the journalist's ethics to lie so blatantly about what truly happened, but it's not like Team Flash could debunk her claims. 

Not publicly, at least. They would definitely confront her in private though. She was counting on it.

"Hey," Barry's time remnant called out softly when he got back in bed wearing pajamas pants. "You have your reporter face on," he added with a smirk as he brushed her short hair away from her neck to expose the skin for a brief kiss. "You shouldn't think too hard yet, the meeting isn't until eleven. We've got time."

_ We? _There was _ no _ we. 

Iris' long-term plan was to get back to her family, one way or another. Unless Team Flash shunned her publicly, which she was certain they wouldn't do, she had all the rights to return to her hometown and resume her life with her loved ones. 

Caitlin was back at S.T.A.R. labs, she would confirm that Iris was truly who she claimed to be. They could do a DNA test and everything.

Maybe her dad and Wally would have a hard time accepting her, but Barry _had _to be okay with her being a time remnant. After all, had he not loved _other versions_ of Iris West before? He would've dated one he hadn't even grown up with in Flashpoint. Iris might be a time remnant, but she _was_ the Iris West that the true Barry Allen had loved since he was a kid.

She knew that Barry's time remnant would be against her reuniting with his original version, who he hated so much. But she wouldn't give the faster speedster a say in the matter.

All Iris had to do was master her powers, and then she would take away _ his_. He wouldn't be able to hurt anyone without his speed even if he had access to the real Barry’s memories.

The former Savitar was the one who insisted that she take whatever she wanted. Well, what she wanted was her life back, _all of it, _and he would have to respect that.

"Penny for your thoughts," the disfigured speedster asked as he gently pushed Iris onto her back and started kissing down her torso, making a brief stop to trace his tongue along the undersides of her breasts.

"Ummm, I was, _ ah_," she breathed out as tingles of pleasure raked through her body.

She gladly pushed aside any master plan to enjoy the feel of his lips trailing down her navel now, and she pliantly let his hands part her still weak legs.

"I was thinking about asking you for another orgasm," she whispered the whole sentence.

**_That's technically not a lie, _**cynical voice declared.**_ Well done, you._**

"I'm one step ahead of you," Barry whispered back jokingly before he dipped his head between her thighs.

** _You're definitely his goddess, _ ** cynical voice claimed with a chuckle as the speedster started eating her out, taking all his time and making her squirm. ** _ That's proper worship right here._ **

Iris still didn't acknowledge the voice, focusing instead on the pleasure she was given by her captor.

_ Fuck,_ he was sinfully good at taking her apart with his mouth.

The original Barry was great at giving oral too—even when he didn't use his powers to add a little vibration to the mix—but his older version was definitely better at it. He didn't even need to use his fingers to wreck her, which was just as well because he had to use both hands around her thighs to keep her from writhing too much or from clamping her legs too tight around his head.

Iris almost regretted taking so long to be intimate with the time remnant. She hated how he manipulated her life, but definitely loved the way he controlled her pleasure. She was very tempted to spend a whole day in bed with him before leaving for good. He would gladly indulge her.

He had been_ insatiable_ that first time they'd been together, almost making her pass out from too much stimulation. And he’d made them both work a sweat with a ridiculous number of positions, tried on a variety of surfaces all over the mansion.

Thankfully his powers had spilled out into Iris and she had reaped the benefits of his super-healing, waking up the next day without a single sore muscle.

The reporter couldn’t wait to get back to the real Barry though, to the real love of her life. This Barry had many of his original version’s qualities, but he was also a _ villain _ who had too many crimes to count, two of which were killing her and coercing her into staying with him. Iris was well aware that the complicated feelings she had for the time remnant came from a very twisted case of Stockholm Syndrome, exacerbated by the fact that her captor looked almost identical to the man she wanted to marry.

Maybe the real Barry Allen wasn’t really hers to claim (_**he definitely isn't**_, cynical voice commented). However, one thing Iris had been taught by the god-wanna be was to claim what she _wanted_, not what she had to do. For that, she would forever be grateful to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Team Flash's business next chapter, with Caitlin and Killer Frost's POV.


	12. Ain't No Sitting Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Flash is overwhelmed and Caitlin calls for backup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, I'm not going the same route as the show with Caitlin/KF. 
> 
> Chapter title ironically from "Burn It Up" by Janet Jackson feat. Missy Elliott.

** _Frost!!!_ ** Caitlin shouted in her head, her right hand still holding the automatic syringe dispenser with which she had injected herself with the meta-gene enhancer.

“I’m not too sure about this, Caitlin,” H.R. commented, but the doctor ignored him.

She wouldn’t be seeking her crazy alter ego’s help if it hadn’t been an emergency.

Clifford Devoe, a villain self-named The Thinker, had taken telepathic control of the meta-humans rescued from Amunet Black’s trafficking and was battling Team Flash through them.

And Team Flash was  _ losing _ , despite starting well by neutralizing the metas whose powers had been quickly figured out: the radioactive Neil Borman had quickly been locked in A.R.G.U.S., the lucky Becky Sharpe had been breached into a pipeline cell, and the power absorber Matthew Kim had been used to take away the gravity manipulation powers from Janet Petty to pass it on to Julian, which had helped the team defeat the thief Sylbert Rundine, who had the ability to shrink everything he touched.

But those had been only five meta-humans out of eighteen who were under The Thinker’s control—thank goodness Peekaboo wasn’t among them, Vibe already had troubles keeping up with Edwin Gauss, who could open pocket dimensions to teleport himself and the other metas.

** _Did you finally come to your senses, and accepted to bow to my greatness?_ ** The ice-meta asked just as Caitlin felt her body temperature drop. The glass vial that had contained the meta-gene enhancer even broke when her touch turned glacial.

** _We don’t have time for your antics!_ ** The doctor warned as she asked H.R. to connect her to the team.

“Cisco!” she called out, weirded out by the echo in her voice. “Come get me, I’ll help!”

“Frost?” Cisco, Julian and Barry all exclaimed in the shared channel.

“No, it’s me, Caitlin,” she reassured her friends and teammates. “I injected myself with a power-enhancer formula to be able to access Frost’s powers…”

“Can you maintain control?” Julian questioned, sounding out of breath. “Kid Flash, watch out!”

Caitlin yelped in shock when her sharp concern for Wally made her shoot out ice from her fingers.

** _I’ve already told you, you can’t help your friends, _ ** Frost told her. ** _ You think that you can control the powers of a goddess with no training whatsoever? Be my guest. I bet that you will freeze Cisco to death the moment you touch him, what with the way your heart rate spikes whenever he so much as breathes in your direction since you two became all lovey-dovey. Which by the way, eww._ **

** _I knew you’d have something to say about that,_ ** Caitlin couldn’t help but reply just as Cisco breached into the Cortex, his arm around Wally’s shoulder. The golden speedster was standing on one leg, the other one looking burned.

“Not sure if I need to comment on your timing to bring out Elsa when we actually need your non-powered  _ doctor _ skills,” the breacher said as he helped Wally hop off to the small infirmary. 

“I wanted to help!” Caitlin reminded as she trailed after the two young men but refrained from touching anything. “Grab that stool,” she instructed H.R. who had also followed. “Elevate his leg…We have to peel off his boots and as much of his epidermis and the papillary layer of the dermis. He should fully regenerate his skin within four hours—”

“I can’t wait  _ four damn hours _ !” Wally objected. “Devoe is turning Central City into a war zone with the metas he controls!”

“Yeah, and I need to get back out there,” Cisco pointed out. “No offense, but H.R. is the least qualified to handle a medical procedure. FYI, Caitlin you have icy vapors freezing all the equipment…”

“Damn it,” the doctor mumbled as she stepped away from the X-ray machine.

** _Let me take over, _ ** Killer Frost requested. ** _ I can get rid of those pesky meta-humans. I won’t kill your friends if they promise to leave me alone after the fight is over._ **

“No! I can do this!” Caitlin insisted out loud just before the air around her got even colder.

“Cait,” Cisco called out calmly, raising a hand at her. “Calm down,  _ please _ . Maybe take the cure again and take care of Wally yourself?”

** _‘Cure’? That drug is rather a curse!_ ** Frost spat. ** _ And who is he to think he can tell us what to do?_ **

** _He’s only talking to me,_ ** Caitlin corrected her.  ** _There’s no “us”._ **

** _If you die because you were too stubborn to give me control of my godly powers, I will die with you, girlfriend,_ ** the ice meta pointed out.  ** _We are a us, for better and definitely for worse_ ** .

That was the unfortunate truth, Caitlin realized. Frost had been with her since she was five years old. Just because she hadn’t talked in her head all that time didn’t mean that she hadn’t been there.

** _If you help us defeat Devoe without killing any of the meta-humans he’s controlling, I will stop working on a permanent cure,_ ** the bioengineer bargained.

** _Like you could ever attempt to kill me, you hippocratic oath taker, _ ** Frost drawled. ** _ No, you need me, so I’m the one making demands. I’m the goddess._ **

** _Knowing that you’d harm more people than I could ever imagine if I let you out, I’m very comfortable with the idea of breaking my oath, _ ** Caitlin countered firmly. ** _ And this is _ ** **my** ** _ body. I won’t be causing any physical harm to anyone else._ **

Silence descended on their shared mind space.

** _Today, it’s this DeVoe guy, _ ** the ice meta pointed out. ** _ Tomorrow, there will be another world-conqueror wanna-be to fight. Maybe Savitar himself will try to have the world worship him. You can’t _ ** **cage** ** _ me most of the time and then ask for my help whenever things get too hard for you mortals to handle._ **

** _What do you want? _ ** Caitlin asked.

“Caitlin?” Cisco’s voice broke through her mental dialogue.

** _I’ll cooperate, _ ** the ice meta promised ** _. No need for meta-gene suppressor or whatever. Just you and me, the way we were supposed to be. The scientist and the scientifically impossible. Nothing will be out of our grasp if we work together._ **

** _I’m not interested in your world dominion agenda, _ ** Caitlin reminded her as she requested Cisco for a minute with a lift of a finger. ** _ And if you break your promise, my team will defeat you and give me the meta-gene suppressor and then I’ll take a permanent cure. Understood?_ **

** _Fine, _ ** Killer Frost agreed. ** _ Now let me take over, this lack of control is embarrassing and below a goddess—_ **

** _No more talk of being a goddess, please! _ ** Caitlin begged as she relinquished the control over her body ** _._ **

** _You just had to say the magic word, _ ** the ice meta replied mockingly as she took over, and blinked at Cisco with glowing eyes.

“No way, she gave  _ you _ control?” the breacher guessed right away as Frost created an ice scalpel and walked towards Wally, who stared at her with wide eyes.

“Relax, boys, Caity and I have an agreement,” the meta reassured the three men—H.R. had scurried back into the Cortex and was eyeing her warily. “Follow along and all will go well.”

Within minutes she’d cut off all of Wally’s burned skin, and she used Caitlin’s instructions to dress his leg.

“Now, let’s go kick this DeVoe guy’s ass,” Killer Frost announced as she flapped an impatient hand at Cisco. “Lead the way, Vibe.”

“You’re going dressed  _ like this _ ?” the breacher asked her, making her look down at her clothes—Caitlin’s clothes.

A baby blue knitted sweater, a brown pencil skirt, and black pumps. Boring  _ and _ impractical.

“Let’s make a stop at the nearest gothic clothing store,” she requested.

Ten minutes later, Killer Frost and Vibe arrived just in time to assist Flash and Julian against the combined assault of Black Bison, The Fiddler, and The Hotness.

** _‘The Hotness’? Who named him? _ ** Frost asked Caitlin flatly.

** _Himself,_ ** the doctor replied, sounding just as unimpressed by the codename.

“Amateurs, all of you,” the ice meta said out loud as she stomped a foot on the ground and turned the whole block into an ice rink, making everyone either get stuck to the ice or slip and fall.

Everyone except Jaco Birch, who melted the ice around him.

“Game’s on,” Frost announced as she blasted the guy with the coldest ice she could create, turning him into an ice statue.

** _I said no killing!_ ** Caitlin whined.

** _Relax, it’s so cold that it won’t cause any hypothermia, _ ** Frost reassured her as she gave the same treatment to the two other metas, turning them into near-absolute zero ice status.

** _Well, my friends will die of hypothermia, and so will the civilians around us! _ ** The doctor warned.

Frost saw that indeed, a few random people who hadn’t gotten away on time were shivering, their feet stuck to the icy ground.

“Hey, Flash and Vibe, how about you do that hero thing and rescue the civilians in need of assistance over there?” she suggested flatly.

Before Cisco Ramon could talk back, the sound of ice breaking drew everyone’s attention to The Hotness’ ice block. The outer layer was chipping off while the center was melting under their shocked gazes.

** _Not too surprising, his powers are opposite to yours,_ ** Caitlin commented uselessly.

“Watch out!” Barry Allen warned.

Frost turned around just in time to lock eyes with Rosa Dillon, and was taken down by stupid  _ vertigo _ .

** _How is such a dumb power a thing?_ ** The ice meta complained as she tried to blindly shoot an ice blast at Top.

“Hey, hey, easy!” Cisco shouted as he avoided the blast—how had it reached him?

** _Stay put, _ ** Caitlin suggested ** _. Until she gets knocked out better not use your powers, lest you hurt someone by accident._ **

Thankfully The Flash quickly took care of Top.

“How did she even end up in Amunet Black’s custody?” he asked with a frown at the unconscious woman.

“Was about to ask the same question,” Cisco commented as he blasted airwaves at a random glass panel of a building…And Sam Scudder crashed out of it, groaning in pain.

Frost threw blasts of ice to counter Birch’s flames, which didn't last long. He passed out from exhaustion.

"Like I said, amateurs," the ice meta reiterated as she smirked at the meta-humans she'd single-handedly taken down.

“Oh boy,” Julian said on her right, and from her peripheral vision, she saw a pocket dimension open. 

From it emerged Roy Bivolo, Mark Mardon, the skinny malnourished guy— ** _that’s Kyle Nimbus!_ ** Caitlin identified the man, who had grown hair since the last time he’d faced Team Flash—Dominic Lanse, Ralph Dibny, Danton Black, and Edwin Gauss himself.

** _There are so many of them!_ ** Caitlin noted in alarm.

** _I’ll take care of them all in no time,_ ** Frost promised.

Not a minute later, a tornado rose in the air.

** _You were saying? _ ** Caitlin asked flippantly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Team Flash next chapter, but with Iris joining the battle!
> 
> Anyone caught up with Crisis of Infinite Earths? How's it going so far? Any West-Allen?


	13. Now It All Unfolds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin tells Team Flash that Iris is alive.
> 
> Chapter title from "Remember The Name" by Fort Minor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a good time writing this chapter, so I hope that you enjoy it!
> 
> No warnings apply, but I just want you to be aware that the first part of the chapter is a flashback to the day Caitlin got rescued, while the second part is after the events of last chapter, which is a couple of weeks afterwards.

"Iris is alive!" Caitlin informed the team once she was done hugging everyone. "Savitar healed her with the Philosopher's Stone. Killer Frost tried to hurt her, but Savitar protected her. I think…I don't understand why he even tried to kill Iris. He clearly loves her, same as…"

She'd said the last words with a careful glance at Barry, who was trying not to throw up.

Iris. She had been  _ right in front of him, _ and he hadn't believed her.

"That's not possible," Joe objected passionately. "We  _ buried _ Iris! Savitar brought Iris's body himself, two weeks after he killed her…"

"Did you do a DNA test of the body?" Caitlin questioned as she crossed her arms and stared at the cop with a challenging lift of her eyebrows. "I saw Iris with my own eyes  _ after _ she almost died. Savitar and Frost claimed that she did die, but I don't believe it. Savitar isn't a god, he can't bring people back to life. She was seriously injured and he healed her, that's it."

"Yes, we did a DNA test, _ three times _ to make sure,” Julian answered as he tried to make eye contact with Barry, but Barry had to stare at the floor ahead of him to keep standing. His knees were getting weaker by the second.

“Wait, so that biker was truly Iris?” Cisco asked hesitantly. “That would explain why she knew to put a power-dampening collar on Killer Frost. And she does have a mean hook.”

“You’re saying that the biker who knocked out Frost was Iris?” Caitlin asked, surprised. “Iris  _ saved _ me?”

“It was  _ not _ Iris!” Joe insisted. “That woman was a meta-human, a speedster!”

“Savitar can give powers to people, right?” H.R. reminded. “Maybe he gave Iris powers too…”

“He only gave powers to people who already had those powers in Flash Point,” Wally corrected. “Iris wasn’t a meta-human in Flash Point, right Barry?”

Instead of answering,  Barry stumbled into a chair, grabbing his head with both hands.

_ Barry, please, you have to believe me. _

“Barry?” Wally called out again.

“It was  _ her _ ,” the scarlet speedster confirmed with a detached voice, belying the devastation of his heart and soul. “I could feel a connection between us…I just didn’t want to believe—”

“Wouldn’t Savitar have ceased to exist if Iris remained alive, though?” Julian questioned. “Cisco theorized that it was a condition for the time loop to sustain itself.”

“Iris  _ is _ dead!” Joe reminded the group, his forehead creased angrily. “That woman was an imposter! We’ve dealt with shapeshifters before, like Hannibal Bates…”

“Joe,” Barry called out softly, exchanging a tearful gaze with his former foster father. “It’s Iris. She’s  _ alive _ .”

“We.  _ Buried _ . Her!” the cop bit out slowly. “We were all there at her funeral!”

“That body could be a clone,” Caitlin speculated. “Killer Frost didn’t see everything that Savitar did to Iris. Making a fully functional, living clone is difficult, but making a dead one is easier. I myself have grown one of Danton Black’s brain-dead clones from a petri dish.”

“Guys, that woman was a  _ speedster _ ,” Wally insisted.

“Speedsters don’t just syphon other speedsters’ powers,” Barry objected. “Zoom needed Harry’s help to steal my speed. And she didn't hurt you in the process. Is your speed coming back?”

“Yeah, I’m almost back to normal,” the golden speedster* admitted. “But Iris never showed signs of having any kind of powers, anyways.”

“Actually… “ the scarlet speedster started as he looked at Cisco. “You remember that time you vibed Iris into the Speed Force?”

“Yeah?” the breacher confirmed uncertainly. “I’ve vibed other people into visions.”

“Except that I was not in a vision back then,” Barry argued. “I was in a physical and metaphysical location. In the Speed Force.”

“I don’t follow, man,” Cisco replied.

“Iris  _ has _ powers,” Barry suggested. “I don’t know exactly what they are, but I know that they are related to the Speed Force. She…I’ve said it before, that there wouldn’t be a Flash without Iris. When I had lost my memory, I found out that I had powers after…After I kissed Iris.”

He saw everyone’s gaze soften in pity, and Joe wiped away a tear.

“And when I woke up from my coma,” Barry added as he looked at Cisco and Caitlin. "I didn’t feel different right away. The first time I felt my powers was right after I touched Iris at Jitters.”

“That just means that your powers are easily triggered by emotions, Barry,” Caitlin argued gently. “That’s totally normal for everyone, not just you.”

“You don’t  _ understand _ ,” the scarlet speedster said as he pulled at his hair. “I felt  _ something _ , when Iris was standing right in front of me. That blue lightning…I feel like I've seen it before, not from Zoom or Trajectory."

"This can't be right, Bear," Joe objected dejectedly. "If you are right…Then I tried to shoot my own  _ daughter _ !" He added, his voice breaking.

"I was going to hurt her," Wally said just as forlornly, looking down at his gloved hands.

"And I was going to lock her up," Barry reminded them quietly. "But we _didn't_ do it. She will—Iris will forgive us. She always has. She's strong…"

"She's alone with that monster!" Joe recalled, devastated.

"Savitar won't hurt Iris," Caitlin assured them. "He loves her…"

"Don't say things like that," Wally pleaded. "It's disturbing enough to know how far that guy would go to take Iris from us…"

" _ Is it? _ Is it  _ really _ ?" The bioengineer challenged him, then immediately turned to Barry, who startled at the way she glared at him.

"If you had nothing to lose, if you didn't care about what others thought of you, about being a  _ hero _ ," she hypothesized, "And you were lost in a timeline that wasn't yours…Wouldn't you go to the same length Savitar has to have Iris to yourself?"

"What? No!" Barry denied immediately, hurt by his friend's implied accusation.

The scarlet speedster looked around the room, and was further hurt by the doubt expressed on multiple faces.

"I've loved Iris  _ my whole life _ ," he reminded everyone, "and never have I tried to, what? Kidnap her? Conduct experiments on her? Savitar  _ stabbed _ her to death!"

He pleaded Joe with his gaze. 

"I never even had the courage to confess my feelings," he argued, "I contented myself with being her best friend for a long time…"

"Until you became a speedster," Joe interrupted him.

"What?"

Barry felt his heart break for the second time within the hour.

How could Joe ever think that he could—

"I'm not saying that you, the _true_ Barry Allen would hurt my babygirl, or would intentionally hurt anyone with malicious intentions," the cop reassured him. "I raised you better than that, Bear. And I know, more than anyone, how much you respect and treasure Iris."

Barry couldn't let out a sigh of relief, because he could tell that Joe wasn't finished.

"But after you were struck by lightning…I don't know," his father figure indeed resumed. "You weren't satisfied with being just Iris' best friend, were you? You confessed your feelings even though she had Eddie at the time. And  _ yes _ , at the time I did hope that Iris would choose you over him, but she didn't. She was mad at you for keeping that secret from her, and I remember how awkward it had been between you too…But not between Iris and  _ The Flash _ . You took advantage of your secret identity to stay close to her."

"Joe!" Barry exclaimed, horrified that his former foster father would let everyone know…

Oh, well, Cisco and Caitlin had to have suspected why he'd spend long minutes at Jitters back then.

But Wally, H.R. and Julian didn't need to know.

"All I'm saying is that IF you truly feel this Speed Force connection between you and Iris," Joe amended with placating hands, "then Savitar feels it too, and it might explain his obsession for her. Savitar is evil because he let the pain of all your losses change him for the worse…Because he  _ didn't _ have Iris. She was dead for four years before you defeated him, or future you did, will do, whatever. He'd gone that long without her even before spending all those centuries in the Speed Force. Bear, the longest you've been without Iris was when you were in a coma, and even then she visited you daily."

Barry didn't need Joe to remind him how much he missed the love of his life.

It was true, Barry and Iris had never been physically separated for very long ever since they'd met in kindergarten. Even in college they'd visited each other at least every other weekend. 

Was Barry  _ obsessed _ with Iris? Maybe. But it wasn't an unhealthy obsession. Iris was an exceptional woman, Barry merely recognized her worth better than the rest of the world because he  _ knew _ her.

"That's a good thing, right?" H.R. commented carefully, drawing everyone's attention.

"I mean…Oh, B.A., maybe you shouldn't be here for what I'm about to say—"

Right. Savitar would know everything that he did.

"I'll be back later, then," he suggested, but hesitated as his eyes landed on Caitlin, unsurprised to notice that she was studying him.

She resented him for not looking for her, he knew that. He'd thought that she would understand that Iris would always be his priority, though.

She'd known about his feelings for Iris for as long as they'd known each other.

"I'm sorry," he whispered before he sped away. 

* * *

"Frost, go back to S.T.A.R. Labs," Flash ordered as he appraised the meta-humans still standing against him: Izzy Bowin, Mina Chaytan and Edwin Gauss.

"Don't think that you can boss me around like you do your friends, speedster," the ice-meta talked back.

Barry glared at Caitlin's alter ego.

She'd been useful, he had to admit it. He wouldn't have been able to take on so many opponents at once all by himself after Cisco and Julian tired out.

But she was turning this block into a winter wonderland. While it was winter in Central City, the temperature was abnormally low at the moment, and the ground was dangerously icy.

"We need Caitlin to figure out how to free all these metas from Devoe's control," he suggested. "I don't want them to be locked up in the pipeline or Iron Heights forever."

Killer Frost was about to argue, but Caitlin must have convinced her in their shared headspace—that was such a bizarre concept—because she nodded and then vandalized the street some more as she used an ice rink to glide away.

"Cisco, do you have any energy left to intercept Frost before she leaves the most obvious trail in history to our secret H.Q.?" Barry requested.

"On it!" The breacher acknowledged.

The scarlet speedster sped away to avoid being hit by the Fiddler's sound waves, stopping uncomfortably close to a spot where Folded Man teleported multiple of Black Bison's animated sculptures.

Without Frost to back him up, it was difficult for Barry to stay outside of the triangle that the meta-humans were cornering him into, especially because the ground was so slippery from ice.

"Barry, every third time Gauss teleports, all three of them are in a triangular formation," Julian said in his earpiece.

"I noticed, yeah," the speedster confirmed flatly.

"Well, if you ran fast enough just as Bowin tries to strike you, you could create a sound wall that will send the waves back to her and the other two" the British CSI theorized. "That will take care of them all at once!"

Huh. Good idea.

"Thanks Julian!" Barry replied before slowing down slightly to fool his opponents into a false sense of confidence.

And right on cue, when he was right in the middle of the triangular formation, Bowin struck lively notes from her violin.

The Flash sped outside of the triangle and ran as fast as he could around the three meta-humans.

He was about to shout in victory when he tripped over an icy patch on the ground, and cursed when he brutally crashed into the side of a building, breaking a few ribs and his left radius.

"Barry!" Both Cisco and Julian exclaimed in his ears.

"I'll be fine," he groaned as he tried to stand back up, but he had too much trouble breathing.

Damn it. Pierced lungs? That hadn't happened to him in all the years he'd been fighting crimes. He had no idea how long that would take to heal.

Longer than it was going to take Chaytan's animated dolls to crush him, that was for sure.

"Guys, a little...back up would be—would be nice," he requested between shallow breaths. "Even Killer Frost…"

"Caitlin is working on the magnetic neuro machine," Cisco informed him. "As soon as she successfully free one of the prisoners, we'll broadcast the signal over all of Central City, and that might even help us locate DeVoe!"

"No...time," Flash warned his teammate, sitting up as gingerly as he could against a wall even as his vision started to black out.

Then, out of the blue, he felt his powers flare up inside him, a searing pain making him gasp loudly before he felt completely rejuvenated.

"What…?" He exclaimed as he felt a hand in his, and only then noticed that his glove had been removed.

Lightning cleared from his sight, and Barry gazed at the most beautiful vision he could've asked for.

_Iris_.

She wasn't wearing those contacts from last time, so aside from the short hair, she looked exactly like he remembered her. He was spellbound by her beauty and grace, as always.

And he definitely was affected by the blue lightning sparkling all over her, which turned gold as it touched him.

"How?" He asked just as she took her hand away, but only to bring it to his cheek.

"I need some of that," she said hurriedly right before she  _ kissed _ him softly on the lips.

Before Barry could reciprocate, she was already pulling away and standing up.

"I'll take care of the violinist," she announced before speeding away, the trail of her blue lightning—was it him or did it look more purple than blue now? —snapping Barry out of his daze.

He stood back up, elated to feel completely healed and even better than before the battle had started.

"Holy shit, it was true!" Cisco exclaimed in his earpiece. "Iris has powers!"

"Told you," the scarlet speedster whispered back before running back into the fray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that the expression is jumping back into the fray, but I just had to tweak it. 
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!
> 
> *maybe that's Kid Flash's official nickname, but I got golden speedster from Leia_Naberrie's "There but for the grace of God, go I".
> 
> You bet that I threw shade on Barry for his borderline stalker behavior towards Iris in s1.
> 
> Caitlin's theory that dead Iris is a clone is obviously invalid, but if Savitar didn't have the Philosopher's Stone + SF bazooka I definitely would've gone with that.
> 
> That's the second time I made Iris some deus ex machina device, and I'm not even ashamed.


	14. I'm Running And I've Just Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Iris ended up in Central City at the right time to help Barry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not too sure about this chapter, but the next one will be more eventful, I promise.

The biggest outward difference between Barry and his time remnant, other than the latter’s scars, was definitely how the former Savitar never looked nervous or uncertain. He carried himself with confidence, laughed, scoffed or just shrugged off when things didn’t get his way—read: when Iris used to reject his forced gesture of affection or tried to escape the manor.

So Iris had immediately been on high alert when his touch had been less possessive and more hesitant when they'd had sex the night of the day she’d revealed her true identity to her employees.

(Kamilla had been excited by the news, informing Iris that she was also from Central City, and it had taken all of Iris’ persuasive skills to turn down the photograph’s suggestion to throw a party at Iris’ place—the reporter had shared her address with her only physical employee early on to prove that her job offer wasn’t a scam. Barry was fine with Kamilla visiting, but Iris knew that he knew that she wouldn’t allow it.

The rest of the team had been more horrified at the idea that their boss had gone through so much trauma, and had been quick to caution her against revealing herself to the world so soon after her (not really) fake death. Also, not being from Central City, they were freaked out by the idea of meta-humans.

So Iris had postponed the release of her reveal article to some time in 2018, a decision she’d shared with her captor slash mentor slash lover—she was so going to need _ therapy _ once she settled back in Central City.)

“Babe, what’s wrong?” she'd whispered in between moans as she felt the time remnant’s hands _ shake _ even as they brought her dizzying pleasure.

“I love you,” he'd whispered back brokenly instead of answering her question, then his hands were steady again and Iris let it slide because she felt bad not telling him ‘I love you’ back.

Then she’d thought that she had imagined it all, because the day following her crucial meeting with her employees Barry had casually asked her if she wanted to learn how to use her powers.

“You never know when you’ll need them,” he’d justified. “You’re a worthy fighter in your own right, but in Central City that won’t be enough.”

Iris _ loved _ how this Barry always advocated for her independence. Yes, most days he followed her around like a stalker around Keystone City, and he’d sped her out of Central City as soon as she’d made contact with Team Flash, but he did seem sincere about wanting her to be her own person, about her becoming powerful enough that not even he could oppose her.

Iris knew that the real Barry would rather protect her himself than let her face off dangerous meta-humans. She didn’t resent him for worrying unnecessarily about her once in a while, and she hoped that his overprotectiveness would disappear once Savitar wasn’t a threat anymore, but she could admit that she preferred his time remnant’s philosophy: if he had to protect her, it would be because he _ felt like it _ , not because he thought that she _ needed _ his help.

So for almost ten days, a couple hours at a time, the fastest man alive had taught her how to channel her lightning rod’s abilities. It was frustrating at first, then exciting, then downright_ exhilarating _.

“How do you manage to live like some common human being?” she’d asked, sincerely shocked. “I’m holding you back! Did you ever need _ a whole team _ to fight crimes?”

He hadn’t replied to any of her questions, and Iris had simply thought that he’d been upset that she’d brought up his old life, or rather his original version’s life.

Then one day, after a lazy morning one Sunday—the only lazy part about it was physically staying in her king bed. The sex at daybreak had been vigorous, brunch had been stuffing, and Iris had worked on her laptop since it was Xan and Buck’s day off so she had decided to check the comments on the morning edition early enough that she wouldn’t have to scramble later on—Barry had disappeared.

Until then, Iris had never wondered what he did in his spare time. He’d stopped following her around for a few days already, and Iris hadn’t stopped to wonder what he did instead. She’d seen him tinkering around with his armor from time to time, but the sigh of it triggered her so she left him alone whenever he was in his workshop.

That’s where Iris had expected to find him when it was dinner time and he still hadn’t cooked anything.

** _What do you take him for, your stay-at-home husband?_ ** Cynical voice had chimed in for the first time in a while.

_ "_Where have you been? _ " _ Iris had asked out loud without thinking.

She’d never directly acknowledges that weird side of her, but that day she had felt too much on edge to ignore it.

** _Didn’t think that there was much to say, considering that you never talked back to start with,_ ** the voice in her head had said. ** _You’re only talking to me now because you’re freaking out about Barry 2.0…Wait, no, he has to be like Barry 5.6 or something, he’s nowhere near being the first time remnant—_ **

_ " _Tell me that you didn’t pop up just to ramble," Iris had begged as she’d changed into jeans and a jacket when she’d found the workshop empty, even the armor was gone. She’d stared at her car keys for a whole minute.

** _Who needs a car when you can run faster than the speed of sound?_ ** Cynical voice had helpfully reminded her.

Yes, of course, Iris always unconsciously absorbed some of Barry’s powers whenever they had sex. The powers easily faded away because the transfer was unintentional, but she’d felt that enough lingered around for a one-way trip.

Where would the time remnant have gone?

** _Please don’t insult my intelligence with this kind of question,_ ** her other voice drawled. ** _Where else?_ **

She’d almost run into a lamp post upon arriving in Central City, then had to get out of the way as people ran away in a panic.

Downtown. The favorite spot for meta-human criminals to have a short moment of glory before Team Flash sent them to Iron Heights.

Only, it seemed that Barry, the _ real _ Barry Allen, was the only one standing against not one, not two, but three meta-humans, who seemed to have partnered up to get rid of The Flash.

Getting closer to the battlefield had been treacherous because of the icy ground across several blocks.

** _Hopefully there’s another ice meta around, because I didn’t almost break all the bones of my hand knocking out Frost to get Caitlin back just for the ice drama queen to make a come back,_ ** cynical voice commented sourly.

_ "_Yeah, hopefully, because if Frost managed to get the upper hand on Barry in his Savitar’s suit then I can’t help The Flash against her," Iris agreed quietly as she sneaked down the streets.

She’d waited impatiently for an opening, unwilling to distract Barry since his confrontation against the three metas seemed almost choreographed.

The Flash crashing against the side of a building hadn’t been the opening she’d asked for, but Iris took it all the same.

She’d been alarmed by the faintness of his powers, hoping that the other Barry was just that much more powerful that his speed force always felt like a blazing but tamed fire, while the real Barry’s had felt like the flame of a candle right then.

It had still been enough for her to connect with his speed force, and she’d easily amplified The Flash’s powers only to realize that she’d overworked herself in the process.

So she’d borrowed some of the true Barry’s powers, and had joined the fight to save Central City, standing at the front lines for the first time.

* * *

“That was amazing,” Iris declared cheerfully, a bit out of breath as she stared at the confused violinist locked up in the pipeline cell she’d run her to.

“Understatement of the year!” Cisco’s voice came up behind her, and Iris’ smile widened at hearing him being as hyper as she felt. “Iris Ann West, you’ve just redefined the meaning of badasserie, I swear.”

“You can say that again,” Barry’s voice resonated in the pipeline just as Iris pulled away from the engineer’s tight hug.

Barry. The _ rea_l Barry Allen, in his Flash suit but with his cowl down, _smiling_ at her—was it her or was the suit a darker red now? It looked different.

“Barry!” she exhaled his name, relief and joy fueling her exhausted body as she literally threw herself into his welcoming arms.

She vaguely acknowledged that the last time that she’d jumped on him like that, he’d just woken up from his coma. 

“I’m so sorry, Iris,” Barry apologized softly above her head, his hands rubbing up and down her back. “I felt that it was you, but I didn’t want to _ believe _ it…”

He gently pulled away, keeping his hands on her shoulders as he bent over to stare at her in the eyes.

“How?” he asked, wonder lighting up his eyes. “You’re…_ here _, and your powers…You’re not a speedster though?”

“A lightning rod,” Iris confirmed. “Which sounds so weird, right?” she added with a scoff as she turned towards Cisco, who had brought down the seal door on the pipeline cells, and was glancing at Barry and Iris with fondness.

“Well, when Barry was sharing his theory that you have some Speed Force powers, we thought _ that _ sounded weird,” the breacher admitted.

Iris’ eyes snapped back to Barry, wide with shock.

“You _ knew _?” she asked quietly. “About me being your lightning rod?”

“I’ve always felt like you’re the only force in this universe who can ground me, Iris,” he replied with a small smile, bringing his hands to her face, rubbing his thumbs against her cheekbones.

The other Barry never did that, oddly enough. He did hold her face with both hands, but would rather just kiss her all over, never for long because it would always escalate to—

** _Can we focus on one Barry at a time? We came here for the other one yet here we are,_ ** her other voice pointed out flatly.

“You just said that you were _ my _ lightning rod, though,” Barry continued as he pulled her by the hand to walk to the Cortex, Cisco jogging ahead of them then disappearing to one of the endless hallways of S.T.A.R. Labs. “Do you mean that every speedster has one?”

“Yeah, but it’s not as straightforward as it sounds,” she warned him seriously. “You’re _ Eobard Thawne’s _ lightning rod.”

“What?” Barry exclaimed, almost tripping all over himself.

“How? Why? _ For real _?” he asked when he straightened up, his eyes wide with disbelief and disgust.

“That’s what the other B—Savitar said,” Iris informed him with a shrug she aimed to make nonchalant, but she felt the original speedster tense.

“All this time, you were alone with _ him _,” he said somberly as he stopped her right outside the Cortex, grabbing both of her hands with his. “I can’t imagine how horrible that—”

“Don’t finish that sentence, it would be a blasphemy,” a chilling voice resonated as air blew over Iris’ short hair.

Savitar stood in his armor in the middle of the Cortex, where Julian and H.R. gaped at him, and Iris even heard Wally’s voice shouting something from what had to be the small infirmary.

Iris herself felt like screaming at the sight in front of her.

Dangling from the extended arm of the evil speedster was an older man wearing an odd helmet with weird cables jutting out of it.

**_What the actual fuck_**, cynical voice commented.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, Iris talks to herself now. She's officially gone insane lol.
> 
> Comments are always welcome! 
> 
> Happy Holidays everyone, and Merry Christmas if you celebrate it!


	15. I Make This Look Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris executes her plan earlier than planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Lightning rod! Iris. In case you were wondering, see the lengthy endnotes for my explanation to her purple lightning.
> 
> Chapter title from "Power" by Little Mix, which in my opinion is one of the best-fitting pop songs for Iris.

“Savitar,” Barry exhaled harshly, and before Iris could turn her head back to him and say ‘wait’, his hands had left hers in a spark of blue lightning.

The older man landed hard on the floor, his metallic helmet thumping against the tile floor of the Cortex.

“Where did he go?” Julian asked in alarm.

“Cisco!” Iris called out, trying to remain as calm as the circumstances allowed.

** _Unless Barry 1.0 got a new suit because he’s faster, he’s going to get skewered just like last time,_ ** cynical voice’s comment made her want to lose that calm.

“What the hell just happened? The metas just came back to themselves,” the engineer declared as he jogged to the Cortex, Caitlin on his heels.

“Iris!” the doctor exclaimed with a smile.

Iris met her halfway for a hug, but regretfully let her go as she stared at Cisco.

“Savitar came and dropped this stranger here,” she explained as she pointed at the man in question, now surrounded by H.R. and Julian who was checking his pulse.

“This stranger, Iris West, is Clifford DeVoe,” H.R. informed her, pointing with one of his drumsticks before stepping away to give room to Caitlin who rushed towards the unconscious man.

“He’s alive, but his pulse is very weak,” the British man relayed to Caitlin just as Iris followed Cisco to the monitors.

“Iris!” Wally called out from the small infirmary next door. He was wearing an odd combination of a S.T.A.R. Labs sweater and his speedster suit pants, his left leg wrapped in gauze.

“Wally,” she whispered, her happiness at seeing her brother greatly diminished by the dread making her heart beat abnormally fast.

“Barry’s on the roof!” Cisco announced after checking the suit’s GPS location. “And...his vitals are _ through _ the roof!” he added alarmingly.

“Savitar’s too powerful for him,” Caitlin asserted just as H.R. and Julian transported DeVoe to the larger infirmary. “Frost wants to stop him but I’m sure she’ll try to kill him instead, and he will definitely try to kill _ us _ after what she did to Iris.”

Iris knew that to be true, and she also knew that she alone could intervene without getting anyone hurt. All she had to do was take away the time remnant’s powers. Barry wouldn’t hurt him if he turned defenseless.

** _Are you sure?_ ** Her other voice asked skeptically. **_He had no qualms sacrificing his other time remnant in the fight against Zoom. Would it even be considered _murder_ if Barry Allen killed his own clone?_**

“Barry’s a good person,” Iris replied, very quietly, just as she made eye contact with Wally.

“Sis,” he whispered, a deep frown splitting his brow. “What happened to you? How did you make it back? Is Savitar trying to take you away again?”

“I don’t know,” she replied to the last question just as she rushed to her brother’s side, giving him a heartfelt side hug. “But we need to help Barry stop him, maybe lock him up in a pipeline cell?”

“He’s faster than Barry so he’s faster than _ me _,” the golden speedster reminded her before pointing at his bandaged leg. “I still have to wait a couple hours until I can safely run, anyways.”

“I can help with that,” Iris announced as she grabbed her brother’s hand and focused.

She was already tired from amplifying Barry's powers earlier, and possibly from moving like a speedster when she wasn't one herself.

Adrenaline had rushed back into her system, however, and once she would absorb all of the time remnant’s powers, she would have plenty of energy to spare.

** _Can you absorb _ ** **all** ** _ of his powers, though? _ ** Cynical voice asked. ** _He’s taught you how to take some, but even then it wasn't really serious._ **

True. Just as Iris had realized earlier, the former Savitar’s speed force reserve was overwhelmingly deeper than Barry’s. And he’d only let Iris absorb it playfully when teaching her how to use her powers. He'd actually allowed the exchange through hungry kisses that turned into makeout sessions. Each time, Iris had always lost her focus so she'd never succeeded in taking his speed away like she’d unconsciously done done with Wally.

Her plan had been to wait until she fully mastered her powers to take away the time remnant's speed. She'd expected to do so within months, maybe a year. This was too early!

But Iris had to _ try_. The time remnant didn’t know that she’d come to Central City to look for _ him _, he might be thinking that she’d gone behind his back to reunite with the real Barry—

**_He was going to figure out the plan sooner or later, _**cynical voice speculated**_, since you've adopted that 'no lying' policy._**

“Woah! Iris!” Wally exclaimed happily as his lightning erupted around them both. “This is so dope! How do you do it?”

“I’ve never asked myself,” she admitted, “but listen, Wally. We need a plan to help Barry catch Savitar.”

“If Savitar doesn’t knock him out first!” Cisco told her all the way from the monitors. “Barry’s injuries are multiplying!”

“I need him to be out of his armor so I can absorb his powers,” Iris explained to the golden speedster. “Like last time, when I accidentally took yours. It might just be temporary like for you, but hopefully it will be permanent.”

“You can do that?” Wally asked, his eyes wide with awe and a bit of disbelief.

“However much power I can take away from him, I need to touch his skin,” the lightning rod reiterated.

She could actually do it through clothes too, but it was mentally easier for her when she had direct access to the speedster's skin. Plus, the armor really freaked her out, it had to go.

“I have no idea how to get him out of his armor,” the golden speedster admitted even as he sped out of the infirmary and returned to the Cortex in his full suit, his bandages still falling on the bed when he stood next to Cisco.

“Use momentum to phase into the armor from the back,” the engineer proposed. “That will force him out of it in the front. Make sure to _ stay _ in the armor so you can bring it back here and I’ll turn it off. Barry said that it has some crazy automatic feature. How in the world does that even work?”

“Alright, let’s do it,” Wally agreed excitedly. “I mean, I feel like I could do it even without momentum. Sis recharged me like crazy,” he specified with a wide grin at Iris, who smiled back as sincerely as she could.

“Okay,” she announced after taking a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

Fortunately, Barry and his time remnant were too invested in their face off to notice the West siblings joining them on top of the S.T.A.R. Labs building.

“On your mark…” Wally initiated quietly, his gaze zoning in on the blue side of the lightning exchange.

“Get set…go!” Iris completed, both running towards the speedster in the bulky armor.

Iris was much slower than her brother, but that was just fine because by the time she reached the center of the two Barrys' battle, the older one was already stumbling away from his armor.

“What?” both he and the original Barry Allen exclaimed as Wally sped out of the roof in the armor.

Before the time remnant could recover from the shock, Iris grabbed both of his hands from behind, and gasped at all the energy rushing into her.

“Iris!" The Flash called out in panic as she and the other speedster went down on their knees, both groaning at the exchange of powers.

“Wait!” she requested with difficulty before the scarlet speedster could try anything. 

She couldn't see clearly, threads of lightning were dancing before her eyes.

“Just a few more se—”

She gasped loudly as the other Barry’s powers flared beyond what she thought was possible. It made Iris let go of his hands, feeling as if she’d been burned—not too badly, but just like when she tried to quickly pick up a pan of brownies freshly out of the oven without mitts.

“That’s not how I taught you to take my powers,” Barry pointed out calmly as he stood back up, gearing to resume his fight against his original version.

** _Thanks for the reminder,_ ** the voice in her head quipped as Iris surged up. 

She yanked the time remnant to turn him around and grabbed his face with both hands. Pulling him down to her, she took advantage of his gasp of surprise to steal a deep kiss.

She ignored the fact that The Flash was standing only a few feet away.

Shockingly, the former Savitar kissed her back passionately, pulling her closer by the waist, his quiet moans of pleasure making Iris feel powerful just as she syphoned the powers of the fastest man alive.

She almost got lost into the kiss by habit, slipping one hand to his nape and the other to his shoulder, but she kept her focus sharp and pushed her limits as the speed force of the older speedster flooded her veins, mixing with the adrenaline and arousal already heating up her body.

Then, without warning, the time remnant dropped unconscious, and had she not taken his powers she would’ve been to slow to keep him from hitting his head on the concrete.

She lowered him to the ground as carefully as she could, her muscles straining at holding all of his weight.

_ That can’t be all of it _, the lightning rod thought to herself, surprised not to hear the other voice confirm her suspicion.

“Quickly, Barry! Get him to the pipeline!” she instructed, looking up at The Flash when nothing happened five seconds later.

Barry was standing aghast for what felt like an eternity, and Iris quickly got too irritated by his reaction to feel guilty about kissing his enemy.

She sped the time remnant to the cell herself, her hands shaky as she locked the door.

Thankfully, it took mere seconds for the strain of her efforts to disappear. Only then did she notice that her lightning was actually purple.

“Cool,” she whispered before closing her eyes and focusing to keep the stolen powers tightly contained, storing it under her skin, coiling it around her muscles all the way to her bones, and still it felt like there was extra powers leaking out. Like residual heat from a recently turned off oven.

_ Wow, no wonder he thinks himself a god, _ the reporter mused internally.

“You got him!” Wally announced happily as he skidded to a stop right next to her, and Iris grinned back and lifted a hand to receive his high five. 

“Brother-sister fighting unit for the win!” the golden speedster exclaimed with a following fist pump.

“What about the armor?” Iris asked just as she felt the gust of wind announcing Barry’s arrival to the pipeline.

“Had to phase my hand through what I guess was the power source,” her brother recounted with a sigh of relief. “Cisco couldn’t figure out how to turn it off before it started moving like some mechanical zombie. That was _ disturbing_.”

“Yeah, ‘disturbing’ is the word I was looking for,” The Flash said, his mask off, unreadable green eyes trained on Iris.

_ No cynical comment to make? _ She asked the other voice as she stared back at Barry.

Her question was met with complete silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't read this if you don't care about lightning colors, it's a waste of your precious last minutes of 2019. 
> 
> In the comics, the overall color assignment for lightning is : yellow = natural speedster; red = Negative Speed Force; blue = Velocity drug; white = speedster super saiyan lol. That's roughly how it is on the show. 
> 
> But then there's the Blue Shift theory also from the comics saying that the closest to blue, the more attuned to the Speed Force someone is. So red = slow; orange = less slow; yellow = moderately fast ; and blue = very fast.
> 
> **In this fic,** other than V9-related speed, blue lightning is pure, neutral Speed Force lightning. It denotes physical contact between a speedster and a lightning rod (remember those blue sparks between Barry and Iris in s1?). It doesn't stay blue though, it becomes yellow when Barry/Wally uses it or purple when Iris uses it. My lame explanation for why Iris' lightning is purple, via the Blue Shift theory, is that she's slow (red) despite having a deep connection to the Speed Force (blue). Red + blue = purple 🙈 I told you that this was a waste of time.


	16. Who I Really Am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry and Iris arguing in the pipeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you watched 5x19 on the show, you already know what to expect on an emotional level. The context and reason for their argument is obviously different.  
This chapter is hopefully unique in its kind, that's 3k of painful words strung together. Not my favorite chapter at all, but it's what this fic has been building up to, so please read as much as you can.
> 
> Huge warning for hurtful words but also for indirect emotional abuse/manipulation. More details about it in the endnotes.
> 
> Chapter title from "She's So Gone" by Naomi Scott (Lemonade Mouth).

Though confused by the request, Wally left when Barry said that he needed to be alone with Iris.

The two of them remained staring at each other for metaphorical hours.

Then the scarlet speedster sighed and ran a gloved hand through his cowl-disheveled hair.

“Did you…Did you have to do that?” he questioned her in a half whisper.

“_Kiss _ him, you mean?” Iris specified, feeling defensive. “Yes, it actually was more efficient than holding his hands. You’re welcome, by the way.”

That made the scarlet speedster sputter wordlessly, his eyes wide with shock.

“I, you, what…I—of course, I’m grateful for your help,” he managed to say after some embarrassing stuttering, which reminded Iris that the time remnant was never that awkward.

“But, you _ kissed him_, and I heard him say…” Barry kept going, sounding pained, “I heard him say something about _ teaching _ you—”

“Yes, he taught me how to use my powers,” the lightning rod deflected as she crossed her arms over her chest. “If you remember that day when you _ rejected _ me, I had no idea how to manipulate a speedster’s powers.” 

“_Iris _,” he whispered, all sobered up.

She sighed, feeling silly for rehashing such a terrible memory.

“I’m—I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” she apologized, in a way, looking at the exit of the pipeline.

Iris did not want to be apologetic, because she had nothing to apologize for. She had helped The Flash neutralize his greatest adversary, Barry should be giving her high fives like Wally!

“Did he…” Barry started, making Iris look back at him.

He searched her eyes, for what, she couldn’t tell, and then sighed, dropping his head momentarily before taking an audible deep breath and squaring his shoulders a little bit.

“Did he hurt you?” the scarlet speedster asked. “After he stabbed you, did he hurt you again?”

“Not physically,” Iris replied carefully after a beat of silence. “But he…I don’t know, at first he persuaded me that I was better off staying with him, that you guys had already moved on, that you wouldn’t accept me…”

It didn’t hurt anymore, Iris realized with surprise.

No, there was no more pain at the recollection of that fateful day a few weeks back. Only understanding, and determination not to go through that same pain again.

She’d been forced to execute her plan much earlier than she’d envisioned, and she’d have to figure out how to integrate her professional life into living in Central City again, but after defeating the fastest man alive, that sounded _ easy _.

“And we _ didn’t_,” Barry recalled somberly, his hands balling into fists, his brow splitting with sorrow and guilt. “We rejected you—”

“Only because Barry, I mean Savitar, tricked you into concluding that I was an imposter,” Iris reminded him. 

“I thought I’d _ lost you_, Iris,” he whispered shakily, and Iris rushed to hug him, sighing in relief when he hugged her back.

“Every day, I was struggling just to breathe,” he recounted with an uneven voice, “I was struggling to keep my promise to you, that I’d keep running. I watched you say your vows on my phone every night and I couldn’t fathom how we’d been so close to having our happy ending, only for it to be ripped away from us…By none other than my own time remnant!”

Iris panicked a bit at the detachment she felt about that tragedy. She remembered filming herself and saying the vows, she remembered fighting the tears as she expressed her love and commitment to Bartholomew Henry Allen, she remembered thinking how unfair it was that Barry would always have the image of her death as his last memory of her…

But she didn’t feel any pain over it. The memories were clear, but felt distant at the same time, as if they’d happened to her years ago.

As if they’d happened to another person, _ another Iris_.

“I’m here now,” she whispered as she burrowed her face into Barry’s chest, rubbing her hands up and down his back. “We can finally have our happy ending.”

“It’s not going to be so straightforward,” the speedster warned her as he gently pulled away to look her in the eyes. “Iris, to your family, your friends, your coworkers…To _ the world, _ you’ve been dead for almost seven months! We’ll have to come up with a story—”

“We can say that I faked my death,” she quickly proposed. “That I used that facial transmogrification device to disguise a corpse, so that some dangerous criminal who was after me because of a story would think that I was dead.”

Barry blinked at her.

“The transmogrification device is from Earth-19,” Barry pointed out with a frown. “How do we sell that out without mentioning the multiverse theory?”

“_Aliens _ invaded us this year,” Iris reminded him with a scoff, “I think that a technology that sounds a little sci-fi is a reasonable piece of info to swallow for the average Central City resident.”

“True,” he agreed with a purse of his lips. “I, I’m glad that you have a whole plan already figured out. Because you were trying to come back to us, right? To come back to_ me_…”

“Since the day Ba—Savitar took me to Keystone City,” Iris informed him, once again tripping over the time remnant’s name, and the real Barry Allen didn’t let it pass this time.

“You call him _ Barry_?” he questioned her, sounding disturbed by the idea.

“He’s your time remnant from the future,” Iris immediately pointed out, shrugging a beat too late.

“We’re nothing alike!” The Flash argued. “You told me that yourself all those months back, when I figure out who he was!”

Iris grabbed him at the waist when he tried to step away from her.

“You said that he didn’t hurt you,” the scarlet speedster recalled as he looked past her head to stare at the sealed pipeline door before looking back at her with wide eyes, some realization dawning on him.

“Psychologically he did, but no he didn’t harm me physically,” she reiterated.

“Did he…Did he _ touch _ you?” he questioned, his voice barely above a whisper.

Iris didn’t want to upset him, and she didn’t want her answer to drive a wedge between them, but she didn’t want to lie to appease him either. That’s what the old Iris would have done.

That wasn’t her anymore.

“Yes, those first weeks he forced hugs and kisses on me,” she admitted evenly, wincing at the gasp of horror coming from Barry.

“I’m going to _ kill him_,” he declared darkly, his shaking arms wrapping around her possessively. 

“Barry, what? No!” Iris objected vehemently. “You’re not a killer, we established that long ago!”

“Then what are we going to do with him?” he countered loudly as he let her go to point at the sealed pipeline cell. “_He’s _ a killer! He’s ruined so many lives, over centuries, just to get back at me, just to _ kill you_! And I couldn’t stop him from doing that, I couldn’t defeat him today—”

“_We _ did, together,” Iris tried to appease him as she stepped closer to him with a hand poised to grab his arm, and it felt odd including him in a victory that was basically hers and Wally’s, but Barry always included her in his victory, so it wasn’t a problem.

“You _ kissed _ him!” he accused her as he took several steps away from her, lifting both hands to signal that he didn’t want her to touch him.

Iris froze, and forced herself to breathe deeply, to stay detached from the pain trying to worm its way into her heart as his accusation resonated in her mind. But the pain was rolling into her veins like waves crashing on shores, seeping into her entire system and seemingly blocking her airways because she couldn’t breathe right, breathing was _ painful _ when the love of her life was looking at her like that.

_ Pain is inevitable_, the time remnant had told her.

“You call him _ Barry_, and you _ kissed _ him,” the scarlet speedster repeated more calmly, grabbing his hair as he paced around her.

Iris focused on the pain, and commanded it to change.

Into what? Anger? No, she didn’t want to be angry. Sadness? Definitely not, she was done feeling sorry for herself. Pride? Arrogance?

“Criminal psychology is a way back, but I remember sitting through several lectures about Stockholm’s Syndrome,” the CSI told her slowly, deliberately, as he looked at her with teary eyes.

With _ pity_.

“Savitar kidnapped you,” he recounted softly, “he sequestred you for months…”

That wasn’t true. The moment Iris had stopped trying to run away and had demanded to reclaim her professional endeavors, Barry had let her go wherever she wanted in Keystone City.

“And he looks just like me,” the original Barry Allen pointed out. “So I _ understand _that you were, and possibly still are confused—”

“I’m not,” she denied curtly, fighting not to work her jaw, because that was a dead give away that she was upset, Barry knew that. “I’m not confused,” she reiterated.

“Iris, it will take you _months_ of therapy to fully recover from this ordeal,” The Flash declared as he walked back towards her, his arms extended towards her. “I realize it now, and I’m so sorry for blowing up at you like that, of course you’re a victim…”

Outrage.

That’s what Iris felt her pain could best be channelled into: outrage.

“Do I _ look like _ a victim?” she questioned the superhero of Central City, walking backwards to maintain her distance from him.

“Iris,” he whispered, that tone of pity still coating his voice and she wasn’t having it.

“I _ saved you _ from your greatest enemy, from the _ fastest man alive_!” she reminded him. “Not an hour ago I also _ helped you _ lock up meta-humans who were threatening the city. Is that what victims do, save entire cities?”

“You’re in denial,” Barry claimed, blinking hard as he looked around, as if looking along the walls for the right words to use without sounding inconsiderate. “Iris, you were a prisoner for over six months, living with the man who tried to kill you! That’s a traumatic experience!”

“I wasn’t a prisoner,” she corrected him. “I opened my own newspaper and radio station, I have employees, I had a life…I have a life!”

“What? _ How_?” he asked, shocked.

Shocked that she could be fulfilled without her roles as a daughter, as a sister, as a girlfriend, as a fiancée…As a _ damsel in distress_!

“I don’t know what horrors you imagine that _ your own time remnant _ did to me,” she said bluntly, taking a step forward when he flinched, “but as I said, aside from those first weeks when he forced his hugs and kisses on me, whatever he tried—whenever he _ touched _ me after those first weeks, it was with my explicit _consent_.”

She almost regretted her words when Barry blanched at the implication of her words, but she couldn’t let the _ fear _ of upsetting him make her sound meek and weak like the _ victim _ he wanted her to be.

“I wasn’t _ confused _ at any point,” she informed him. “I knew that I had no chance of getting away from him by fighting his advances. I knew that he’d have me locked up if I kept trying to run away. But he didn’t want me to be reduced to some damsel in distress. When I told _ Barry _ that I wanted to go back to being an investigative journalist, he created a virtual newsroom for me. When I learned that I was a lightning rod, he explained to me what that meant, he taught me how to use my powers, and he told me that I had the means to stop him. Wally couldn’t stop him, Tracy Brand’s Speed Force Bazooka couldn’t, _ you _ couldn’t…But _ me _ , Iris Ann West, I could stop the fastest man alive. And I _ did_, way ahead of schedule. I had planned to wait a few more months to master my powers, you see. After all, who else could tech me how to use them? None of us knew about me being a lightning rod.”

“I did,” Barry objected quietly, his tone lifeless as he gaped at her. “I’ve always felt it, Iris.”

“But when I was standing _right in front of you_ with those powers, you did not. Believe. In me,” the reporter bit out as she poked him in the chest, making him stumble backwards. 

“_I _ was the only one who ever _ believed you _ about your parents and the man in yellow, Barry,” she reminded him. “_Me_, not dad or Cisco or Caitlin or Eddie, to whom you easily told your secret while you kept _ me _ in the dark about being The Flash. About being the superhero Central City wouldn’t have known about without me!”

“I thought that you forgave me for that,” the scarlet speedster whispered, hurt.

“I did, I have,” she promised him with a dismissive wave of her hand. “That’s why I have _ also _forgiven your time remnant for manipulating me. It wasn’t the first time that a Barry Allen tried to play with my mind.”

“Iris!” he chided her, taken aback. “You can’t compare my white lie to what Savitar did! We’re not the same!” he shouted, outraged.

“And I’m not _ your _ Iris!” she shouted back without thinking. “I’m not the woman you want to always need you to save her. I have powers now! I’m my own hero!”

“And I’m happy for you!” Barry claimed. “I truly am, Iris, it’s amazing that you came out of this tragedy so strong, but you have to acknowledge the traumas you’ve gone through in order to get your life back…”

“Who are _you_ to decide what I have to do to get _ my _ life back?” she interrogated him. “You couldn’t even _ save _ it! You couldn’t save _ Iris_!”

That had them both freeze, and after a few heart beats Barry spoke again, more quietly.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t fast enough to prevent Savitar from hurting you,” he apologized, but his voice still held pity and condescension, and Iris was _ done _ with this conversation.

She was done listening to words that weren’t even meant for _ her_. They were meant for the old Iris. The original version.

She was the _ better version_, and she wouldn’t be spoken to like the pitiful heroine of some tragedy.

“Savitar didn’t hurt me,” she corrected the original Barry Allen, who had appeared so perfect in her memories, but he had been perfect for the old Iris, and that wasn’t her anymore.

Iris wanted him to love her for herself, with her new personality, her new skills, her new strengths and fewer weaknesses. She wanted him to _ adapt _to the new her.

“Iris, yes, Savitar hurt you,” the scarlet speedster insisted. “Physically, mentally, emotionally…”

“Savitar _ killed _ me,” she specified, projecting all the sincerity she could muster into her eyes as she stared at him. “He killed Iris, Barry. She’s _ dead_.”

“What? No, Iris, you’re here,” he denied, shaking his head vigorously. “You’re alive, and—and safe, now that he’s locked up. You'll get better, I promise.”

“I’m not…” Iris started, the truth momentarily getting stuck in her throat.

Barry stared at her, frowning, waiting with bated breath for her next words, possibly sensing the truth that she was withholding.

“I’m not _ your _ Iris, Barry,” she reiterated, sighing in relief as a weight she hadn’t noticed she’d been carrying lifted off her chest. “I’m not the old—I’m not the _ original _ Iris.”

He gaped at her silently, and she saw him quickly working out his puzzlement, his eyes bulging when he figured out what she meant.

“But you’re not a speedster,” he pointed out, his tone hopeful. “Only speedsters can—”

“He used the Philosopher’s Stone and the Speed Force Bazooka,” she explained. “I’m not a speedster but I’m connected to the Speed Force. I can threaten the integrity of the space-time continuum, just like speedsters. I’m the _ impossible _ just like you, Barry.”

He searched her eyes, and Iris internally prayed, no, _demanded_ him to believe her this time, and to be okay with that truth.

She knew that Wally and her dad would have trouble with who she truly was, but Barry would help her rebuild her connection with her father and brother, would explain that it didn’t matter what version of her they got back, as long as she was real.

“You’re like him,” the scarlet speedster said, to her shock.

“What?”

“You’re like Savitar,” the true Barry Allen declared evenly. “A time remnant.”

“Yes,” she confirmed, and startled when his eyes filled with tears.

“So, Iris—the Iris we buried…?” he said in a watery voice, stumbling into a wall by the exit of the pipeline.

“Iris is _ dead_?” he asked, his voice breaking.

Iris felt sympathetic to his pain. One day she’d tell him about transforming pain into something better, but she knew that he needed to grieve anew for the original Iris.

“Iris died,” she confirmed quietly as she took a few steps towards. “But _ I _ came back, and I’m better—”

“You came back?” he repeated, confused. “No, Savitar _ created you_.”

Technically that was true, but she was still her own person—

“He created you to torment _ me_,” Barry specified as he leaned away from the wall and straightened to his full height, his hands turning into fists at his sides. “He created you to remind me of what I’ve _ lost_, of what he took away from me, what he took back, just like he _ prophesied_.”

Iris felt her heart rate pick up alarmingly, and almost panicked at its speed until she remembered that she’d absorbed the other Barry’s powers, so technically her heart beating a few thousand beats per minute was normal.

“A _ time remnant _ …I should’ve known,” the scarlet speedster declared with a shake of his head. “You’re the same in a way, but so _ different._ I know that Iris had powers too, but yours are probably…Savitar manipulated them. You’re not…”

“I’m not the old Iris, no,” she reiterated, pleased that he’d readily made peace with that fact.

“You’re not the _ real _ Iris,” he told her calmly, and it took a moment for her mind to process his words, and the next.

“You’re not _ Iris_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILER ALERT, kinda but not really. I feel a strong need to clarify things because I hate writing Iris like that, you've all noticed that something's wrong with her and you're right but there's no chapter where someone will have an epiphany about it since basically everyone who has a POV in this fic is an unreliable narrator. So here goes the big reveal. I'm sure you felt it as you read this chapter but here's exactly how I hoped you'd interpret it.
> 
> Iris isn't mentally stable. It's kinda obvious, but I made sure that it wasn't obvious how _deep_ her instability runs until this chapter. She thinks that she's fine and that she played SaviBarry, and that's how I made it look for the past chapters with Iris' POVs...But it was **the other way around**.
> 
> She IS a victim. She was acutely aware of her physical imprisonment, but not of how he was brainwashing her (in this chapter she was repeating all the sentences and mantras SaviBarry taught her) and making her feel safe, making her feel powerful and in control in his presence while she'd had no control over her life whatsoever from the moment she woke up in that makeshift infirmary in Chapter 2. She was at the mercy of Savitar, aka the guy who killed her, for over half a year. He could've killed her anytime, could've raped her anytime, could've refused to let her become financially independent from him..._Not really_ because he loves her in his own twisted way and does want her to be all kinds of amazing, but only if she's amazing **with him**.
> 
> That cynical voice was truly Iris' own voice, how I think Iris would sound like if she was on sass mode 24/7. She sounded crazy but really she was making sense all the time, at least to me. Did you notice exactly when the voice disappeared? Anyways, original Barry's right: except for cynical voice, the Iris you've been reading about is mostly Savitar's creation.
> 
> The next couple of chapters will be in SaviBarry's POV, naturally, so stay mentally prepared for that.


	17. It All Comes Back To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SaviBarry exchanges a few words with Team Flash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! Best wishes for 2020.
> 
> There's not much happiness in this chapter. Savitar is his own warning.
> 
> Chapter title from "In The End" by Linkin Park (Mellen Gi & Tommee Profitt Remix)

Barry’s lips stretched into a smile before he even opened his eyes in the pipeline cell.

Ah, S.T.A.R. Labs. To think that there had been a time he thought this place safe and secure.

The time remnant easily stood up from the cold floor and leaned against one of the padded walls just a few inches from the glass door. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

For someone who’d waited centuries to fully execute his plan, Barry was amusingly impatient to see everyone’s face.

Well, not _everyone_, not yet. On the other side of the seal door, his first draft and Iris were having the conversation that the speed god knew would finish to break The Flash.

Did that mean that the timeline would be preserved? He couldn’t tell for sure. Caitlin had gone back to the team, and from the younger Barry’s memories it was clear that she and Cisco were an item now. That was a significant divergence from the original series of events.

Not that keeping the timeline intact past Iris’ death truly concerned the fastest man alive anymore. It would have been nice to see the younger Barry dive into the same despair that had pushed him to create time remnants, and it would have guaranteed that the Speed Force would leave him alone, but it wasn't necessary.

With the Philosopher’s Stone and Iris, even the Speed Force couldn’t do much to punish Barry for breaking so many of the rules that ensure the integrity of the space-time continuum.

_ If _ Iris stood by his side when the time came, that is. Part of him was both figuratively and literally under her skin, so logic dictated that she would realize very soon that her plan to leave him for the original Barry Allen was pointless. _That_ Barry Allen would never accept her. He could never fully appreciate who she was now. Flashes of images from that Barry Allen’s perspective was showing Iris telling The Flash about her fake story to explain her return to Central City... _ Oh, Iris _. 

Everything would be okay in the end. After this final rejection, Iris would finally stop trying to get her old life back, and focus on achieving her full potential. 

Barry had only gotten a preview of how magnificent she could be: unapologetic, demanding, calculating, powerful, and always so _ beautiful _. 

He had nothing to worry about. She’d be his, _ completely _ his, soon enough.

So the time remnant blocked out his younger self’s memories and focused on his own senses, on his own perspective. 

It was the only one that counted.

Possibly an hour later, Barry hadn’t cared to look at his watch, the seal door of his cell lifted, and he smiled at who stood on the other side of the glass door.

The entire Team Flash, minus The Flash himself. How delightful.

He scanned the small crowd before waving a hand downwards.

“The offer to kneel in deference is still open,” he teased, chuckling when Wally slammed a hand to the thick glass.

“You are one sick bastard,” it was Julian who opened the hostility, his British accent grating Barry’s nerves. “After ruining countless lives and making us go through this nightmare, you had to keep going and torment Iris’ family by creating her time remnant.”

“I thought that the things I saw in the Speed Force were horrible,” Wally followed up, “but what you’ve done is crazier than what the Speed Force could ever come up with. I'm not forgetting that Jay is going through his own personal nightmares this very moment because of you!”

“That’s what he’s best at,” Caitlin chimed in from behind Cisco. “Making people go through their own personalized nightmares. He empowered Frost and that led to me feeling like a prisoner in my own body.”

“No, my friends,” H.R. intervened dramatically, waving his arm around. “No, we should not let him have any power over us. Let's keep in mind that despite the fact that he created this other Iris for his own nefarious purposes, she did the right thing by locking him up. His own creation _ defeated _ him. He’s not a god, so we are free to write our own destiny without his interference. We can be whoever we wish to be."

The world traveler stood immobile and adopted a serious mask before opening his big mouth again.

"I will never forgive myself for divulging the real Iris’ location to you, Savitar, but I won’t run away from my guilt, nor from the pain of Miss West's loved ones. I’m not a coward, nor an imposter. I am a true Harrison Wells. I am brilliant and creative.”

“Speaking of brilliant and creative,” Cisco spoke up, his tone much lighter than the others’. He narrowed his eyes and he lifted a finger like a shy student asking for permission to speak in class “just _ how _ did you get your suit to be autonomous like that? Did you create some neural interface to control…”

“Cisco,” Joe cut him off, his voice menacingly low though his sharp gaze was fixed on Barry.

The engineer lifted both hands in apology, and even took a step back when the cop stomped forward to plant himself a mere inch from the glass separating him from the time remnant. His breath fogged up against the surface.

“I don’t know when or how I will do it,” he started, his voice shaking with emotions, “but I will make sure that you go back to the jail you crawled out from, you psycho. And from there, you will watch us heal and move on from you and your sick schemes, you will see Barry thrive in the light and stay away from the dark path you chose to take because you were too weak.”

Barry almost responded to his once father figure immediately, but he let out a short sigh and leaned away from the wall to fully face the group of pathetic mortals—minus Caitlin and Killer Frost, he supposed. Frost was above them, but it was clear that she had lowered her standards since betraying him.

“Cisco,” he called out, making the breacher startle a bit. “I’ll reply to you first, since you’re the only one who said anything expecting a response.”

“Ah, ah, I’ll get to you soon enough, Joe, patience,” he quickly added when the detective tried to object.

“I’m using a silent version of Gideon to power my suit,” he informed the engineer, “well, I _ used _ one. From what Wally told Iris and Barry, the internal wiring is damaged beyond repair. I believe that you can still have a good look at it. I'd like to know how different it is from the Gideon the very first timeline's Barry Allen built, and how Thawne got to steal her. My version won’t obey anyone’s command but mine and Iris’.”

“And how did _ you _ build her?” Cisco asked skeptically. “Are you telling me that they have hardware stores in the Speed Force?”

“The Speed Force is an infinite quantum realm with space-time doors that open to all of the infinite earths that exist,” the speedster truthfully informed him. “If I could get you heroic people to give me the Philosopher’s Stone, you can imagine how elementary it would have been to have others provide me with the necessary material to modify Savitar’s original armor.”

“_ Hold up _ , did you just say that you modified Savitar’s original armor?” the breacher interrogated. “As in, Savitar is _ a different person _?”

“Don’t believe anything he says,” Julian discouraged the engineer. “He’s manipulated us enough.”

“You say that like you didn’t benefit from my divine intervention on your pathetic lives,” Barry commented, relishing the anger that bubbled out of the British scholar.

“You ruined my life!” the CSI claimed. “You killed my sister and took possession of my body, and had this team not helped me, I would still be your puppet!”

“Your sister died in an excavating accident that I had no part in,” Barry corrected him. “And I certainly did not send her on a quest to find an artifact whose powers are beyond human’s comprehension. You Brits clearly haven’t learned to leave reliques from other cultures alone. Let it be a lesson to you neo imperialists not to mess with what you don't understand.”

Cisco and Caitlin tilted their heads at the exact same angle to express their muted agreement to his statement, their synchronicity quite fascinating.

“And really, do you actually have anything to complain about the life I've led you to?” Barry questioned Julian. “You’re part of this team now; you have an amazing job which truly should’ve been Barry’s but it’s his own fault for messing up with the timeline; you didn’t get the girl but oh well, plenty other fish in the sea, you've crossed the Atlantic, you should know.”

Caitlin, painfully oblivious, whispered to Cisco: "Girl? What girl? Did that happen when I was gone?"

“And now you even have _ powers _ , stolen from Null,” Barry reminded the British man, who blushed in embarrassment. “What? No, _ that’s okay _ , it’s not like anyone here will ask you to give them back. Janet Petty was a criminal, she didn’t deserve those powers, right? _ You _ do. You are going to use them to only do _ good _. My question is: are you going to help this team protect Central City, or will you go back to England to be a superhero in your own right? Not that these powers are anywhere near as impressive as Constantine’s, but oh well.”

“Who’s Constantine?” Cisco whispered to Caitlin, who shrugged.

“One of the most powerful beings on another earth,” Barry answered the question as his eyes held the doctor’s. “You could’ve been one of the most powerful beings of _ this _ earth, Frost, but you decided to play nice with your co-host. I’m disappointed.”

Caitlin frowned, very likely at the crude response that her alter ego voice internally.

“Or maybe you’re playing them all, who knows?” the speed god speculated with a smirk. “You know now that I truly killed Iris, so maybe you’ll kill Cisco to fulfill your destiny as well? Targeting Iris was a mistake. She’s _ mine, _ and one day I’ll make you pay for ever thinking that you could lift a finger against her. Or maybe I’ll let _ her _ get her revenge on you. She’s now closer to being a goddess than you are.”

Caitlin’s eyes momentarily glowed, but she remained stubbornly silent.

Smart woman.

“Wally, Wally, Wally,” Barry moved on to the golden speedster with a disapproving shake of his head. “Your lack of gratitude truly is astounding. Before I intervened, you were nothing but an ordinary young man envious of Jesse who won the Speed Force lottery when you two got hit with the dark matter pulse last year.”

It was _ almost _ endearing that, in the year and a half that he had known her, Iris’ brother had adopted her tick, that shift of the jaw that indicated that she was angry but was holding it in order to keep the peace.

Almost, because Wally, unlike Iris, was _ not _ a peace keeper. He was a self-centered, immature _ trouble-maker _.

“Now you’re Kid Flash, just like in Flashpoint, and you have all the girls at CCU fawning after you. You don’t need a car to satisfy your speed addiction anymore. You’re whining about the short time you spent in the Speed Force, when really it only made you more resilient. Real strength comes from adversity, Wallace. Your sister knows it. Oh, wait…I _ killed _ your true sister, all thanks to _ him _,” Barry reminded the younger speedster as he pointed at H.R.

“Harrison Wells of Earth-19,” he said as he pensively held his chin, pretending to think before finding his words. “No, really, there’s nothing to say about you. You’re _ inconsequential _.”

“Just like your threat is, Joe,” he transitioned to the man who used to mean so much to him, who had hurt him the most when he’d looked at him and decided that he wasn’t worth his love.

“You talk big, but here you are, stuck in this pipeline,” the cop countered, as expected. “She might be a time remnant, but this Iris is just as resourceful as my baby girl. You thought you could cage her, but she’s the one who caged _ you _.”

Most of Iris’ fierce personality was inherited from Joe, there were no doubts about it. Barry would always be grateful to his former foster father, because there would be no Iris West without Joseph West.

“What, _ this _ pipeline?” Barry asked innocently as he made to inspect his cell.

Then he couldn't help it, he threw his head back to laugh at the ridiculous notion that a mundane, dark-matter shielding system could cage _him_.

“Gotta give him that, he's got the whole evil twin act down pat,” Cisco quipped a second before Barry casually phased out of the cell, effectively shutting up any response to the engineer’s words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated, and for this fic I reply to them all after posting the next update, so please don't think that I'm not reading them!
> 
> Unless I come up with a subplot, there might only be 5 chapters left to this story. I'm not putting a final chapter count yet because that has worked against me in the past!


	18. Everything I Touch Isn't Dark Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But what about the timeline?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just couldn't wait for tomorrow to post this! The previous chapter was light for a reason.
> 
> Chapter title from "Monster" by Imagine Dragons.

It took a mere second for Barry to take care of five of the six occupants of the pipeline, even the golden speedster.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Barry heard Cisco curse as he gently lowered Caitlin to the ground, quick to break her fall after the speedster had knocked her out cold—now, _there_ was a pun.

The other members of Team Flash would wake up with a few bumps and bruises, which was more mercy than they deserved from Barry.

After gently propping his girlfriend against a wall, the breacher was brave enough to stand back up and brace for a fight, as if somehow he could measure to the fastest man alive.

Maybe the breacher would have stood a chance if he’d spent time working on those speed force syphoning devices Harry had made for Zoom, instead of wasting all those months looking for Caitlin.

“Don’t worry, they’re all fine, just unconscious,” the speedster reassured his once friend.

“Glad to know that you’ve limited yourself to only murdering _ the love of your life_!” the engineer replied harshly even as he let his arms flop. “Man, how could you do that to Iris? Iris West! _ Your future wife! _”

Barry had been about to speed out of the pipeline, but the breacher’s words glued him to the floor.

“My future wife,” he repeated quietly as he stared at Cisco. “That was in the _ original timeline only_. That version of me had the perfect life, but Thawne _ ruined _ it. From all the earths I had a glimpse of when I was the Speed Force, the ones that had both Barry Allen and Iris West always had them _ married_. It's not just Earth-2, Cisco. Iris and I are meant to be together throughout the _multiverse_.”

The engineer opened his mouth to make a comment, but kept quiet when Barry stepped towards him at normal speed.

“But _ this timeline on this _earth has been through too many do-overs,” he informed the other scientist, “while the rest of the multiverse is thriving, its center has been corrupted. Not just by Thawne, but by Barry himself. By me. I _ cursed _ my own destiny.”

Flashes of memories invaded the speedster’s mind as his voice thinned out.

Iris dying, over and over, first by Savitar, then by himself. 

Him trying to change the series of events, only for them to repeat themselves because of his intervention.

** _Please,_ ** he remembered begging the Speed Force, the right side of his face still smarting from the burn of Savitar’s lightning.

**_Please, I need her._** **_You’re the one who told me that she’s my lightning rod. Why tell me that just to take her away from me?_**

** _We did no such thing,_ ** they’d replied calmly, neutrally, though there was an unexplainable sorrow to their aura. 

** _You did this to yourself, Barry. We warned you, but you did not heed our warning. Now you must live with the consequences of your actions._ **

Cause and effect. He’d messed up the timeline over and over again, and for that the Speed Force had condemned him to a life without Iris.

Maybe that’s why, at first, he’d kept going through the time loop: to be able to see her, hear her, _touch_ her, for however long until her next death, until his next descent into the darkness, until his next rejection by the team, until his next impersonation of Savitar.

Letting The Flash defeat him, letting the time paradox catch up to him, maybe _that_ had been an option, but to this day he doubted it. The Speed Force wouldn't have let him find peace in death. It had been trying to teach him a lesson.

The joke was on them, then, that Barry had always been an excellent student. Now the student had surpassed the teacher, the speedster had become a _ god_, and he now was rewriting his hopeless destiny.

“All of those worshippers were idiots anyways,” the speedster pointed out. “Those Flashpoint metas didn’t have to turn into villains, they could have done anything with their powers but they chose to be criminals. I ruined their lives because they let me do it. Wally didn’t. Julian didn’t. _ You _ didn’t.”

“But Iris,” Barry started but quieted down, needing a moment to keep himself together. 

“Iris was _ innocent_,” he resumed. “When Zoom killed my father, she was the only good thing left in my life, my one hope to have another family of my own some day. She was my light, my strength. That’s why the original Savitar, a speedster who wanted to be the fastest of us all, targeted her.”

“He’d been lost in some Speed Force limbos, you know,” Barry told his not-friend, revealing the story of his predecessor for the first time. “Savitar. Whatever his real name was, I never cared to know. He’d tried to abuse his powers, to develop them too fast, and the Speed Force had punished him for it. And I guess that when I did worse than him by playing with the timeline one time too many, the Speed Force somehow pitched us against one another, maybe to have one get rid of the other, because how many wayward speedsters can they really tolerate, huh?”

“Right,” Cisco bit out. “I remember the first time you tried to go back in time, to save your mother when fake Wells told you how to…You didn’t, you returned without changing anything because some other version of you forbade you to do it, implying that changing the terrible event of your mother's death would be a grave mistake.”

Barry remembered, he would never forget his first intentional time travel experience. He wondered where that version of him had come from, and what had become of him. Was _that_ Barry Allen married to his Iris West by now? Or were all the timelines of Earth-1 cursed like his had become?

“Yet you did it _again_,” Cisco kept going. “First to get fast enough to defeat Zoom. We did not notice any difference, but you…_Barry_ told us that originally, Hartley was a bad guy, and didn’t get along with his family. 'Not too big of a deal in the grand scheme of the universe' was what I thought back then. But without Hartley, that time wraith would’ve killed Barry…And _ I _ wouldn’t have lost _ Dante _ if that Barry had died because he wouldn't have been able to mess up the timeline again. Killer Frost might have remained dormant in Caitlin forever. Maybe Cynthia and I would’ve never broken up, or I would’ve never met her. Iris _ definitely _would still be alive.”

Barry felt oddly humbled by Cisco’s neutrality even as he pointed out how his best friend had ruined his life. Barry couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d done after all his time spent in retrospection, but the engineer had clearly forgiven Barry.

“But _you’re_ the one who killed her, Savi…Barry, whatever your name is supposed to be now,” Cisco clarified as he poked a finger on the speedster’s chest.

Bold.

“This time around you’re the one who _stabbed her,_ who took her life!” the breacher almost shouted. “Then you created her time remnant. Why? Why not just leave the original Iris alone?”

The fastest man alive didn’t even have to answer, the genius figured it out himself.

“The paradox,” he exhaled, his eyes widening as they searched Barry’s. “You needed Iris to die to keep existing, but you wanted to have her to yourself. You psychopathic genius.”

It was somehow rewarding to have Francisco Ramon acknowledge his intelligence, however disrespectful the compliment truly was.

“But what if Barry never creates time remnants again?” the engineer questioned. “Now that he knows that you’ve played us all, he won’t make the same mistakes, regardless of his new grief over Iris’ death. You’ll disappear anyways!”

“Will I?” Barry asked calmly.

“You’re an aberration in the space-time continuum,” Cisco pointed out. “A speedster who’s abused time travel. A time wraith will come for you sooner or later, and one will come for Iris’ time remnant too!”

Barry chuckled.

Though he'd _love_ to see puny time wraiths come for him and Iris, he knew that it wouldn't happen. Iris wasn't an aberration, she was the only one Iris in this timeline.

As for Barry himself, as long as he had the Philosopher's Stone, time wraiths would know to stay away.

“What now?” Cisco asked quietly, the outrage seeping out of him in a long exhale.

“Now I take what’s mine,” Barry answered before stepping aside and walking towards the exit of the pipeline.

“Wait!” the breacher requested, grabbing Barry’s arm, only to gasp loudly and freeze on the spot.

The speedster blinked.

A vibe. Cisco was having a _ vision_.

The engineer stumbled backwards when he came back to himself, panting loudly as he stared at Barry with wild eyes.

“What did you see?” the time remnant asked, curious.

“For fuck’s sake, can’t this _maniac_ leave us alone for even a year?” the engineer said with a scowl.

“Cisco,” Barry called out. “What. Did you. See?”

“Guys, guys!” The Flash shouted as he whooshed into the pipeline. “The article in the time vault…What the hell?”

Barry sped away and stopped in the time vault, where the projection of the fateful article was still on.

**Flash Missing Vanishes In Crisis**

** _By Iris West_ **

_ Monday, February 12 2018 _

Iris West, not Iris West-Allen. Also, February 12, 2018, _ not _ April 25, 2024? That meant that the crisis was coming six years earlier than in the original timeline.

Today was December 5, 2017.

They had two months and one week to get ready for the enemies, _plural_, that had brought not just Team Arrow, Team Legends and Supergirl to Central City, but also _Batwoman, Batman,_ Superman, _The Titans_,_ Wonder Woman,_ _Green Lantern_…And the description of that unnamed British magician sounded a lot like _John Constantine_.

Many of these superheroes belonged to _ other earths_, yet they were supposed to all come to Earth-1 to fight alongside Team Flash.

“This is going to be fun,” Barry declared with a wide smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 17 was a necessary breather before we dive into CRISIS via another plot twist.  
Obviously I won't spend the rest of the fic (about 5 chapters left, but I could be jinxing myself right this minute) describing punches, kicks and beams of magic, don't worry. The (Barry/)Iris/Savitar drama is the heart of this story just like WestAllen should always be the heart of the show.  
I decided to do a Crisis storyline in this fic because season 3 made the article from the future relevant again, and I appreciated that back then even though s3 wasn't about Crisis at all. That article from the future had felt so central to everything back in Season 1 when the show was really engaging that I had to bring it up in at least ONE of my eleven WestAllen fanfics. What better time to do it than now, during the stupidly long hiatus of Crisis on Infinite Earths.


	19. I Can See It Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The original Barry confronts Savitar about Iris after the news of the upcoming crisis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't updated this fic forever, and I'll admit that it's because no one had commented on the previous chapter. Either no one received a notification about it, or interest in this story was lost. I assumed that it was the latter, but Blue05 asked for more so here it is.   
I guess that I decided to shift to the original Barry's POV instead of a third SaviBarry's POV, to show where his mind was after learning that Iris is a time remnant.

After checking everyone’s pulse and confirming that they were all alive—God, he’d thought that Savitar had killed them all except Cisco—Barry sped back into the time vault.

He’d taken refuge there after his talk with Iris’ time remnant. He had needed to process the painful truth that the lightning rod had shared with him.

Iris was dead. The  _ real one _ was. His heart was breaking all over again.

But a part of Barry  _ didn’t _ want to grieve, not when his eyes and ears and skin and even his speed force could tell him that there was an Iris West right next door. His  _ brain _ was challenging his heart’s grief.

This new Iris was different from the Iris West Barry had grown up with and fell in love with, but could he really hold that against her, after he himself had rewritten the timeline so many times, after falling in love with the Iris West in Flash Point? 

Iris was  _ Iris _ , right?

She wasn’t the Iris who had written the 2024 article the first time around, but she definitely was the one whose name was on the byline of the 2018 article.

Iris  _ West _ , not  _ West-Allen _ …

That’s what Barry was thinking as he stood behind his time remnant, looking at the warning of another catastrophe befalling Central City—no, Earth-1—no, the  _ entire Multiverse _ . 

“Two months then I’ll be rid of you for good,” Savitar commented, his words acknowledging Barry’s presence.

“It says that I vanish, not that I go missing  _ forever _ ,” the scarlet speedster felt the need to counter.

Savitar turned around to frown at him.

Those scars, that right eye…Barry itched to know what had happened to his time remnant.

But he itched to hurt Iris’ murderer even more.

Not now. There was a huge battle to fight, and the faster speedster would be an invaluable ally to defeat the enemy.

“Whatever would you come back for?” the older speedster questioned as he tilted his head curiously. 

Oh. Of course Savitar had seen Barry break down after Iris’ time remnant had confirmed the original Iris’ death.

Sometimes Barry forgot that his time remnant had his memories. He supposed that it was a coping mechanism.

“You haven’t  _ won _ ,” The Flash asserted with determination. “Iris is Iris,” he added, failing to hide his uncertainty, but he powered through. “You thought that creating her time remnant would hurt me, but I’ve realized that she could actually  _ heal me _ . She wants to come back here, with  _ me _ , she doesn’t want to stay with  _ you _ .”

“She could’ve come here anytime,” Savitar pointed out. “She hasn’t fully mastered them yet, but she has powers. She’s not a speedster, but every time we  _ made love _ she syphoned just enough of my speed to run back to you. Yet until today she didn’t. She’s been with me the whole time,  _ healing me _ .”

“Shut up,” Barry demanded, thoroughly bothered by the idea of  _ any _ Iris having sex with his enemy.

He’d have to let go of that jealousy eventually, if he wanted to have his happy ending with this new Iris. If she still wanted to be happy with him, too.

“I don’t want to talk about Iris,” he told his older self as he pointed at the projected screen. “This crisis is going to affect the entire planet, and other earths as well… There’s  _ magic _ involved! We need a plan. I hope that I don’t have to beg for your help to defeat Reverse Flash and this Doctor Destiny?”

“We have two months to come up with a plan,” Savitar specified. “I want Iris to make a decision  _ right now _ . Either she chooses me or she chooses you or she chooses neither of us.”

Barry was taken aback by that third option.

This Iris would just come back to Central City, resume the life of her original version, but then what? Cancel their engagement? Barry still had her ring, Joe had returned it to him before the end of their month-long leave.

Could Iris West live without Barry Allen? Barry knew that  _ he _ couldn’t live  _ without her _ , not just her existing and being safe, but her being by his side and supporting him and pushing him to be the best version of himself, just as he wanted to be by her side and support her and push her to be the best version of herself.

But this Iris was different from the one Barry had proposed to, in a way Barry couldn’t fully comprehend.

All that because of Savitar.

“All the pain, all the trauma you’ve put this Iris through…How could you?” the younger of the two speedsters demanded. “And what were you thinking keeping her away from her family against her will, that  _ overtime _ she’d think of you as me? Fall in love with you, marry you? You’ll never be me.”

“I’m not your  _ substitute _ !” Savitar denied vehemently, pointing a finger at him. “I’m your  _ better _ version! I’m faster, stronger, smarter!”

“Only because you have more years on me,” Barry argued. “You’re  _ centuries _ ahead. But Iris never cared about that. She always emphasized that being and doing  _ good _ was my superpower. She didn’t want me to end like you, consumed by darkness. So it’s normal that she wouldn’t love this supposedly better version of me. You  _ killed her _ !” He said angrily, grief fueling his outrage.

“It was the only way to  _ save her _ !” Savitar claimed at the same high volume. Thankfully, the vault was sound-proof.

“Do you know how many times I tried to  _ change fate _ ?” the older Barry Allen asked. “I kept trying and  _ trying _ , and it wouldn’t work. But I finally did it. I’ve rewritten this cursed destiny.”

Barry remembered his 2023’s version telling him that there was nothing he could do. That version of him had been unaware that Savitar had been his own time remnant.

“I have you to thank for that, actually,” the older speedster admitted. “That weapon you had Tracy Brand make four years ahead of time…Stupid idea, but I turned it to my advantage. I couldn’t do much with the Philosopher’s Stone alone. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not a miraculous artifact that makes every wish come true. Rather, it adapts to its holder’s understanding of the universe. Even after centuries spent in the Speed Force, I am not omniscient.”

“So you admit to not being a god,” Barry commented with a scoff.

“To be a god one only has to make others believe that they are,” Savitar reiterated the statement he’d spoken all those months ago through Julian’s lips. “Plus, speedsters  _ can be _ gods. You know it.”

“We’re just human beings,” Barry parrotted Jay Garrick, not surprised when his time remnant snorted.

“Garrick’s goodie-two-shoes attitude is the reason why he’s so slow after a  _ lifetime _ of being a speedster,” Savitar claimed. “You’re faster than him after just a couple of years of being The Flash. You’re almost faster than Thawne now, at least the version you saw last. The next one might be faster yet again, who knows. He’d probably always be a little faster because you’re his lightning rod.”

“So that’s true?” Barry asked, disgusted.

“Believe me, I’m as disgusted by the idea as you are,” the faster speedster answered with a shrug. “But Reverse Flash and you—well, us—do have a symbiotic relationship so to speak. You wouldn’t have gotten faster without Thawne, and he wouldn’t have been powerful without you. It’s a closed feedback loop.”

“What about me, now that…Now that  _ my lightning rod _ is dead,” Barry questioned somberly.

It was odd to be having a peaceful conversation with his greatest enemy, but again, he should be used to it thanks to Thawne and Zoom. It was just  _ weirder _ because he was technically talking to himself _ . _

“I don’t know what you mean, since Iris is  _ alive _ , well, and more powerful than you’ve ever known her,” Savitar corrected him. 

“Her time remnant is,” Barry corrected back.

“What’s a time remnant, huh? A temporal duplicate, pulled out from their timeline to exist in another that’s a mirror image of theirs to the millisecond. You’ve seen  _ other _ Irises that were not truly her: on Earth-2, and in Flash Point. They were not the one you’ve wanted to marry since you were a kid.  _ This _ Iris  _ is _ Iris. She is the only Iris existing in this timeline. There’s no more time loop threatening her life. I took out the original Savitar from this timeline. I outsmarted the Speed Force and got rid of the paradox. Iris is  _ safe _ .”

The relief in the time remnant’s voice was so poignant that it made Barry’s heart skip a beat when realization dawned on him.

All this time, he couldn’t understand how another version of him could ever wish harm to the love of his life… _ Now _ it made sense.

He’d been trying to  _ save her _ all along, unlike the Barry from 2023 who had accepted her death as final.

“She’s not safe from  _ you _ ,” The Flash argued nevertheless. “The way she speaks…You’ve  _ changed _ her, you’ve manipulated her to be just like you. I know that you enhanced her powers too. I’ve always felt that my powers were connected to Iris, that she was my strength, but not quite so literally. You did  _ something _ .”

“You’re not as asinine as I thought,” Savitar replied with a wry smile. “But I’d say that I  _ started  _ something, and Iris built the rest on her own. She’s  _ amazing _ . You saw her out there. She’s only been training for days!”

Oh yes, Barry had been impressed by Iris, both downtown and on the roof. It’s like she was born for this.

“So don’t think for a second that you’ll manage this crisis  _ without her _ ,” the time remnant warned him in a darker tone. “Whatever plan we come up with, she needs to help us put it together before you present it to your team. Did you ever stop to wonder how she could get so many details of the battle to write about, even in the original timeline?”

Barry balked a little, feeling his blood drain away from his face.

“I always thought that she got the details from second-hand accounts, from Cisco and Caitlin and Joe,” he admitted. “I can’t imagine myself letting her go  _ anywhere close  _ to Thawne…Just like I can’t see myself letting  _ this Iris _ join the fight. She can help with the battle strategy, but…This timeline has already lost one Iris West. It cannot afford to lose  _ another _ .”

“You deserve a punch in the face for thinking that you can  _ let _ Iris do anything,” the older speedster countered. “But go on, keep it up. That will only help her realize that I’m so much better than you.”

“You’re better than me because you  _ endanger her life  _ at every turn?” Barry questioned, incredulous. “You should be keeping her safe!  _ You  _ of all people should know how precious her life is!”

“I know more than anyone else, possibly even Joe, how precious Iris’ life is,” the time remnant agreed. “I took it and gave it back, after all. But her life isn’t mine, it’s  _ hers _ . So whatever she wants to do with it, I won’t merely let her do it: I’ll  _ help _ her do it.”

“Yet you’ve  _ controlled _ her life for almost seven months now,” The Flash reiterated his accusation. “You stopped her from coming home to me—”

“Excuse me, did I  _ imagine _ that conversation you had with her a mere hour ago in the pipeline?” Savitar asked rhetorically. “I could have sworn that you  _ rejected _ her!”

Barry took a centering breath.

His time remnant was right, he  _ had _ rejected Iris’ time remnant. Right there in the pipeline, hearing her say words he’d never thought could ever come out of his fiancée’s mouth—and never hearing her say ‘please’ or ‘sorry’ or ‘thank you’, words that had been a constant in her speech whenever they had a heated argument—he’d had trouble seeing her as  _ the real _ Iris. The short hair didn’t help either. There was just something fundamentally  _ differen _ t about her.

But maybe that was  _ temporary _ . Over six months spent stuck with this psychopathic version of him had obviously taken its toll on her. Like he’d told her before she’d confessed that she was a time remnant, she needed time to  _ heal _ .

Maybe once she did, Barry would be able to see her as the  Iris he loved again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated, seriously! Thank you Blue05 for your comment. I only have a rough outline for the remaining 4 chapters, so I won't be updating again so soon. It would be nice to complete a WIP though, so I will definitely post updates. Definitely faster if I get feedback, that's my M.O.
> 
> The original Barry's mind is wishy-washy here, but I think it's normal considering how his world has been turned upside down once more.


End file.
